The false statue.
Recently, social networks have been abuzz with news of an incredible marble sculpture produced from a rough block, and exhibited at the Sheung Yiu Folk Museum in Hong Kong, China. NB: Please note that this pict, which can be seen just about everywhere, is a fake, created by AI. The artist of the work is said to be a certain Monica Angel Rain, a well-known sculptor in the field of modern sculpture, known as the school of hyperrealist art. OK. Firstly, as stated in NB, the pict is a fake produced by AI. Secondly, this artist does not exist.
There is an American artist with a similar name, Monica Angle, but she doesn't specialise in sculpture, only painting and printmaking, which is very different at this level of expertise. Mrs Angle isn't bad in itself, especially in terms of her prints, but she's not the supposed Mrs Monica Angel Rain. Then the museum. It's a museum specialising in Hakka culture. And I'm a fan of Hakka culture as a whole, so I can't imagine a so-called modern work of art ending up in a folk and cultural museum of any kind. As proof of this, there is no trace of the piece in this season's catalogue, even though the sculpture is due to be exhibited in September. It's worth noting that even though this information originated from a TikTok publication, it was picked up by at least one official daily newspaper in Italy. Which just goes to show how important it is to have access to expert tools when it comes to articles specialising in arts and culture.
Lastly, marble is the most difficult noble material to work, even more so when it comes to detail (although granite is harder, it is much less noble) and its execution is long and tedious, costs a fortune and is only produced to be sold, nowadays, to rare, wealthy customers. The tools used range from chisels and chisels with teeth for roughing (they come in different sizes) to rasps and bow drills for refining the work. Since the 20th century, some sculptors have used more mechanical tools. There are laser techniques and mechanical techniques using software, but it is extremely easy to tell the difference in terms of the quality of the material, its true provenance and, above all, the technique used to cut the stone.
Finally, hyperrealism, which means ‘extreme realism’, is a new contemporary artistic trend that emerged erratically in the mid-19th century with the work of Auguste Clésinger and his sculpture of the ‘Woman Stung by a Snake’, which praises female pleasure and whose muse was Apollonie Sabatier (a demi-mondaine). Then, at the end of the 1960s, in the USA, the representation of moments of the of life, in a way that was more realistic than everyday reality. The precursors of the genre were George Segal and Duane Hanson, who were far from being marble sculptors, but rather master plastic artists, using resins, wax, silicone, fibreglass, sometimes plaster, rarely bronze. The concept sometimes uses real human models, which are then moulded, as in antiquity. So, strictly speaking, this is not sculpture. Personally, my interaction with contemporary art is largely subordinate to what these works will earn me later in terms of commission or legal fees. But hyperrealism has that little touch that has a real chance of leaving its mark on people for a very long time to come. It's beautiful, disturbing and realistic. I like it. Evan penny especially.
In conclusion: this image is anything but a real sculpture, it in no way represents a work of hyperrealism and the artist does not exist. A little information. The Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome is home to the finest collection of hyperrealist art.
Embun.
References and links.
https://burchfieldpenney.org/art-and-artists/people/profile:monica-angle/
https://hk.heritage.museum/en/web/hm/museums/sheungyiufolk.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperrealism_(visual_arts)
