Imitation
John Haberle American
Not on view
American trompe l’oeil painters replicated paper bills so exactly that they raised suspicions of actual forgery. Haberle’s title, Imitation, provokes on multiple levels, as do his painted representations of different forms of representation—stamps, currency, signatures, and a tintype photograph (of himself)—whose relative values depend on established conventions. Nothing is materially “real” here, though much may be “true,” such as the portrait likenesses. He signed the work twice: his name is “carved” into the wood support and appears to have been hastily cut from newsprint and affixed to the frame in a parody of the collection nameplate. The latter draws attention to his artistic “brand,” despite the association with a newspaper’s degradable paper and cheap price.
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