Sarah Dahnke

The Adler Planetarium may be an unlikely spot to find what we define as art in the traditional sense. While it may not contain galleries full of rare or abstract paintings, it does contain rooms full of unseen instruments, kept under wraps because they all share the same dark secret: they are fakes. Creating a fake sundial is as careful of a process as creating a fake Picasso; attention to minute detail is key. And some of the best fakes have circulated through the museum circuit before they were discovered.

The Adler's newest exhibit, "Imposters!" nods to the fact that the museum has inadvertently acquired fakes over the years and attempts to educate the public on how to distinguish fakes from authentic works and why replicated materials are often necessary for the educational process. I recently spoke with Bruce Stephenson, curator of history of astronomy for the Adler, about how this unexpectedly conceptual exhibit is relevant in the artistic sense, as well as the historical.

How did most of the articles find their way into the museum? Some were forgeries, but were others deliberate replicas?

We have some that were made for scientific reasons. Someone wanted to see if they could make a complicated sundial, and the museum bought it as a replica--perfectly honest dealings--no misunderstandings on anybody's part. And then we have some that were forged--fraudulently made to deceive the purchaser. And there are some that we aren't sure where they fall on that spectrum. There are a lot of different shades of gray in this exhibit.

How did you finally determine that some of these items were not authentic?

It varies from one thing to another. Most of the things that we're exhibiting came here on the belief that they were genuine. We don't have a policy of collecting fakes. But opinions change. Curators are fallible like anyone else. One of the ideas in this exhibit is to point out that these are not all black-and-white questions. Just because you go to a museum and you see something that's described in one way doesn't necessarily mean it's so.

The press release for "Imposters!" specifically mentions the compendium (a complex sundial) and how it was thought to be an original. Are there any other notable items that were thought to be authentic that were later found to be replicas or fakes?

There haven't been any dramatic discoveries like that. The compendium was a really peculiar case because they are highly ornate pieces that had famous names on them, and my predecessors thought it was one of our treasures. Then they got a letter from a friend of theirs who said, "I just got this great thing!" And it was the same description basically. The one that had been at the Adler had been here for fifty years, so we just swallowed our pride and said, "Okay, we've got a very ornate, fake instrument."

The exhibit features a number of tools, but it also features books and works on paper. How do those fit into the exhibit?

The books that we're exhibiting are honest facsimiles. [For example,] a Copernicus first edition, those are extremely valuable, and not many people can get their hands on one to study it. For a couple of hundred dollars, you can get a facsimile that looks identical to a first edition but costs a few hundred thousand dollars less. These are scholarly tools. If you want to study the way Copernicus printed his books, you should get a facsimile. If you want to study the paper on which he printed his books, you need the real thing.

This exhibit seems more conceptual than the previous displays at the Adler. What was the inspiration for this exhibit?

This is a series of exhibits, usually one every three months. When we were talking about what we'd do next, someone said, "Why not do fakes?" Because we know we've got fakes. Every collection's got fakes, so why not just be up front about it? And this is an opportunity to get some of those things out in the open and talk about how you know if this is a fake. There are sort of interesting questions that museum visitors may not have been exposed to before.

It seems like this exhibit, because it deals so much with the creation of the tool or the book, could appeal to the art lover or to the science and astronomy lover. Do you have plans in the future to facilitate exhibits within this same realm?

I think we're always trying to cross those boundaries. Our collection is basically old scientific instruments, but scientific instruments from the Renaissance were pieces of art. Most of our pieces can be regarded either as beautiful objects created for wealthy connoisseurs or scientific tools for investigating nature. And we always try to look at both sides of that.

"Imposters!" opens at the Adler Planetarium, 1300 South Lake Shore, (312) 922-STAR, on March 10.

(2007-03-06)

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