Italy’s art theft squad has broken up a European network of art forgers and dealers, and uncovered the country’s biggest operation of Banksy fakes.
On show in a historic palazzo in the central Italian city of Pisa this week are about 450 works by some headline-grabbing names: Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol and others. Alongside them are paint tubes, paintbrushes and cans of spray paint, reflecting the versatility of their creators.
Many of the works were attributed to Banksy, the elusive UK street artist. Galizia said an entire “Banksy exhibition” in the central Italian town of Cortona was shut down after officers determined that all the pieces were fake.The seized works include paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. Some 38 people have been placed under investigation on suspicion of conspiracy to deal in illegal goods and of the forgery and sale of illegal artworks, Italian officials said.
They tracked down fake works in auction houses throughout Italy, Eurojust said, and found others on auction house websites. The investigation also involves dealers who may have acted as go-betweens.Some had probably acted “in good faith,” Galizia said, while others appeared to be complicit in the fraud.
In a way, said Jaleh Bahrabadi, the state archives’ director, it was fitting that a place entrusted with preserving history’s primary sources should showcase fake art, putting something authentic alongside something spurious.A table in the centre of a room lined with Banksy works reveals the tricks of the forgers’ trade: tubes of paint, spray cans and a Banksy rubber stamp used to “authenticate” the works, one of around 50 such stamps investigators confiscated.
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