‘It was only meant to be a small experimental project,” says Łukasz Twarkowski with a knowing smile. The 42-year-old Polish-born director is discussing his show Rohtko, inspired by a real-life art forgery scandal. In 2009, it was revealed that the prestigious New York gallery Knoedler & Co had paid more than $20m for paintings by Mark Rothko and other abstract expressionists, which transpired to be fake. The gallery folded, the art world quaked, and the paint trail led back to a Chinese maths teacher living in Queens.
The case has already been the subject of Netflix documentary Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art. In Twarkowski’s hands, it becomes a vehicle to interrogate preconceptions about originality and authenticity. These he holds up to the light, finding them suspect if not counterfeit. True to his intentions, Rohtko (the title is deliberately misspelt) is experimental. But at just under four hours in length, with a spectacular set by Fabien Lédé and a palette as stylish and sumptuous as any Michael Mann or Wong Kar-Wai film, “small” it is not.
