The artwork titled, Authentic Replicas: An installation at The Skulpturenhalle Basel continues my investigation of issues to do with the value of the reproduction, and the relationship of the reproduction to the original work of art. This work consisted of an installation of plaster replicas of some of the objects that form part of the poisons section of The Portable Hawkers Museum’s collection at The Skulpturenhalle in Basel. The Skulpturenhalle houses a collection of plaster reproductions that were made for didactic purposes, so that art students could learn from the so-called master sculptors, as well as to reinforce the values that underpinned Enlightenment European culture. Through exhibiting my plaster replicas in The Skulpturenhalle these replicas acquire a similar value as the other plaster reproductions within the museum, by association. The irony of my plaster objects is that they are untimely more valuable than the plaster reproductions in the Skulpturenhalle, because, although they are replicas, they are also ‘original works of art’. This accounts for the ironic and somewhat cheeky title. Thus the artwork becomes an interrogation of value and the relationship of the original work of art to the copy, as well as a means of bringing a part of urban culture in Johannesburg into the European museum context.
