A documentary on Rai 5 about the fake Modigliani and the Livorno heads hoax

Fakes are the protagonists of the next episode of Art Night on Rai 5, the container on art by Silvia De Felice and Massimo Favia and Marta Santella, directed by Andrea Montemaggiori. On Friday, April 2 at 9:15 p.m., two documentaries will be aired, one dedicated to the fake Giacometti and the other to the fake Modigliani and the hoax of the fake Modigliani heads that were made to be found in Livorno in 1984.

The first documentary is titled The Case of the Fake Giacomettis, is directed by Clara Ott, and tells the story of more than a thousand fake sculptures by Alberto Giacometti found in Germany in the early 2000s. While the Swiss artist’s works are being sold for very high sums at international auctions, a trade in fakes is developing in parallel by a small gang that puts hundreds of counterfeit sculptures on the market, some of which also ended up in major exhibitions and museums. The story is recounted by its protagonists themselves: the German police commissioner who prosecuted the case, the private Dutch art detective who helped track down the forgers, the one who made the fake sculptures, and the art expert who analyzed them. Through their cross-referenced accounts, Alberto Giacometti’s attractive and troubled personality also emerges.

Next, Art Night features the documentary Il mistero di Modì, a special in which art historian Vincenzo Trione traces Modigliani’s life and especially the case of the forgeries. In fact, on January 24, 1920, Amedeo Modigliani died at the age of thirty-five, and the works of the young painter from Livorno, until then known mainly for his excesses in Paris clubs, quickly acquired extraordinary value. Modigliani’s resounding posthumous fortune makes him, even today, one of the world’s most highly regarded artists. The first catalog raisonné of his work attributes 337 works to him. More than 1,000 can be found on the market today. How is it possible that Modigliani was more prolific dead than alive? From the sensational hoax of the fake sculptures found in Livorno in 1984 to the more recent closure by the Genoa Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Palazzo Ducale exhibition for the presence of at least 13 forgeries, all kinds of scams have accompanied Modigliani’s name, scams that have misled even the most established critics such as Giulio Carlo Argan. The focus of the special is on the precious materials from the Teche Rai, which have made it possible to reconstruct precisely the affair of the fake sculptures in Livorno. The episode is introduced by Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo del Novecento in Florence.

A documentary on Rai 5 about the fake Modigliani and the Livorno heads hoax

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