Study day alongside the exhibition
The Forgery Workshop. Fake books, fake bindings, fake identities
organized at the Wittockiana
by Perrine Decroës
with the support of the FNRS-Rare and precious documents
January 30, 2025
“It is difficult to tell the truth, because there is only one, but it is alive, and therefore has a changing face,” wrote Franz Kafka (Letters to Milena – quoted in Étienne Klein, The taste of the real2020). The border between truth and falsehood is indeed sometimes tenuous, even murky. This reflection finds particular resonance in the world of books, where originality and creation coexist with copying, pastiche and counterfeiting. These practices, whether marginal, intentional or clearly fraudulent, question not only the notion of authenticity, but also the multiple social, cultural and political functions of the book.
The Wittockiana, museum of book arts and binding, strives to show that the book, beyond its function as a material support, is also a social object in its own right. A vector for the transmission of knowledge and ideas, it is an instrument of power and control, an element of cultural identity, an economic object, a social mediator, a support for protest or even an engine of change. As such, the book reflects societal dynamics and tensions, including in its relationship to falsehood, whether it be falsification, imitation, misappropriation or militant creation.
The study day organized alongside the exhibition The False Workshop à la Wittockiana aims to reflect this diversity, offering an eclectic approach to themes linked to forgery in the world of books. Through interventions on subjects such as counterfeiting in Belgium, literary pastiche, fictional libraries, or even biographical fiction as a genre in its own right, this day aims to highlight the multiple variations of forgery in literature and book arts. Drawing on historical, literary and cultural perspectives, the contributions will reveal the tensions, strategies and issues, sometimes ambiguous, which surround these practices, while questioning their impact on our relationship to authenticity, creation and to collective memory.
Echoing contemporary debates on the notions of truth and post-truth, this study day intends to demonstrate, through a plurality of points of view, that falsehood cannot be reduced to a single definition. It thus constitutes a relevant prism for understanding the ambitions, tensions and paradoxes specific to any society and any creative enterprise.
On these questions, we will have the pleasure of listening to:
-Renaud Adam (University of Liège), Paul Aaron (Free University of Brussels), Bruno Goosse (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels), Jacques Hellemans (Free University of Brussels), Véronique Jago-Antoine (Archives and Museum of Literature), Stéphane Mahieu (writer), David Martens (Catholic University of Leuven) et Quentin Nerinckx (Catholic University of Leuven).
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Practical arrangements:
The communications, presented in French, will last twenty-five minutes, followed by fifteen minutes of discussion. All interventions will take place in person, video conferences are not accepted.
Date: January 30, 2025
Time: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Location: Rue du Bemel 23, 1150 Woluwe-Saint-Pierre
Inscription : [email protected]
Responsible: [email protected]
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