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“Sousveillance Capitalism,” The Language of Fungi, and A Freaky Online Ouija Board

I bring you the finest reading material in my weekly Linkfest

Clive Thompson

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“Nature Morte” by Wolfgang Beltracchi, painted in the style of Fernand Léger

Monday: Done!

Only four more days to go.

Celebrate reaching the 20% point of the workweek with my Linkfest — a collection of the finest reading and viewing material I could hunt down, just for you.

To begin …

1) 🖼️ The couple that made millions forging Modernist paintings

Wolfgang Beltracchi started painting as a kid in the 50s, and by age 12 he was doing excellent copies of Picasso. He kept it up and, after meeting his wife Helene, the two began a wildly successful career of forging paintings — not by copying existing ones, but by painting new images in the style of famous Modernists.

Above? That’s a painting by Wolfgang, done in the style of Fernand Léger.

The Beltracchis sold millions of dollars worth of fakes, and were only tripped up in the mid-2000s when Wolfgang made a critical mistake — he made a fake that he claimed was from 1914, but in which he used a type of paint that didn’t exist back then.

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Clive Thompson
Clive Thompson

Written by Clive Thompson

I write 2X a week on tech, science, culture — and how those collide. Writer at NYT mag/Wired; author, “Coders”. @clive@saturation.social clive@clivethompson.net

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