SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

KAIROS is the Greek god of the right moment for a decision. European art history consists of countless decisions that together determine which works are seen - and which are not. The exhibition "KAIROS. The Right Moment" takes a look at the unseen in art, at forgotten works and those that were never created. Mauro Fiorese visited the storerooms of significant European museums. In his photographs, their hidden treasures become visible. Wolfgang Beltracchi painted important historical events of the past 2,000 years for "KAIROS. The Right Moment" for the first time in the handwriting of the masters of their time. Initiator Christian Zott makes it possible to see European art history with different eyes through this exhibition. The catalog introduces European museums and their collections with Fiorese's photographs. It presents Beltracchi's paintings against the backdrop of their stories and the eras they represent and documents the creation of the works with additional images. In 40 fold-out cards, the catalog provides a comprehensive overview of the exhibition and its artists."

In 2011, the "Beltracchi Case" shook the international art world and thus changed our perspective on the business of art. For years, Wolfgang Beltracchi forged works by famous painters from various periods of art history and sold the paintings through international auction houses and galleries alongside his wife, Helene. In this book, the Beltracchis tell their adventurous story, provide insights into the mechanisms of the art market, and debunk the myth of the infallible eyes of experts who verify the authenticity of paintings. Exciting, fast-paced, and artfully crafted.

The story of Wolfgang Beltracchi describes this development: Born and raised in the Westphalian province not far from the Dutch border, he led a nomadic hippie life with stops in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Spain, and Morocco before settling down in a secluded, one might even say hidden life in the South of France, not far from Montpellier. The turning point in his biography came suddenly, within a few days. It was his encounter with his wife Helene that fundamentally changed his life ideas, his sense of life, his goals, and his attitudes.

He had been painting before and after that, and his "work" bears the signatures of many painters. He did not master the styles of just three or four artists like other forgers but an astonishing number of painters. Even today, his paintings hang in museums, appear in catalog raisonnés, art books, and collections, a process that raises the question of original and forgery with new urgency.

How this was possible, how the story of an artist unfolded who realized his own skill in the work of others, how a comprehensive body of work was created through playful ingenuity, expertise, hedonism, deception, social and aesthetic fiction, in which individual paintings represent only a moment in a grand illustration of market procedures and greed, is narrated in this remarkable book by Helene and Wolfgang Beltracchi together.