Sting in the Tale

Description:

Fictive artworks have multiplied rapidly in the last two decades with a wide range of artists who have worked in this genre and generated its upsurge in popularity. 
Some of the projects covered in this book have strong cult followings, so it will appeal to people fascinated by the Codex Seraphinianus and the Voynich Manuscript, for example.
Concluding considerations include contemporary internet-based artists, NFTs, and the role misinformation has played in recent politics and events like the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.
The self-referentiality of fictive art allows for critical conversation about the social contract and aspirations toward a just society in the age of rampant misinformation. It differs from cons and hoaxes, pyramid schemes, identity theft, forgery, impersonation, etc. in that its goal is to be eventually found out, revealed as an elaborate fabrication, and appreciated as a fiction-based form of art.
As the author writes, the book highlights artists "who trouble our ideas about
gender and identity, who use the form to expand on the larger social
context of art: what it means to have to pass as someone (or something)
else, to be invisible or mis-seen, to perform as a trickster due
to low status, to be unable to contribute to the narrative around what
counts as art. In other cases, fictive art arises out of resistance to cultural
change and comes from those who benefit from the status quo."

The book connects the long history of the “trickster” in art to the contemporary urgency to use art as a socio-political tool for productive mischief-making.
LaFarge is