Thu 18.02.27 —
Sun 28.02.27
Sonder
Yves Degryse & Alva Ishii / BERLIN & NTGent
NL
EN
True Copy
True Copy
True Copy
13.04.27 — 14.04.27
True Copy
13.04.27 — 14.04.27Acclaimed theatre company BERLIN fuses worlds and realities on stage in this fiercely praised play. One man struggles to hold his own amid a web of lies - or are they variations on the truth?
On May the 6th 1994 the gendarmes break into Geert Jan Jansen’s French country estate, where they find more than 1600 works by the likes of Picasso, Dali, Appel, Matisse and Hockney. Striking detail: most of them have actually been painted by the Dutchman. For more than twenty years, Jansen has managed to fool the art world, so convincingly so that Picasso and Appel themselves unwittingly provided certificates of authenticity for his creations. ‘I do not deceive, I relieve,’ he says about himself. ‘I reckon I’ve relieved them of a heap of work.’
A spelling mistake eventually lays bare Geert Jan Jansen’s illicit activity. The German police arrests him. To this day, museums worldwide are exhibiting works by Geert Jan which nobody would single out as forgeries.
In True Copy, BERLIN shows the internal cogwheels that keep this complex man ticking, as a manual for laying bare – amongst other things – the hypocrisy inside the art world. What does authenticity really mean?
Practical info
Duration
80 minutes
Tickets
15 - 31 euros
Language
DutchLanguage level:
Good to know
On 13 April, NTGent presents an aftertalk with theatre maker Luanda Casella on the topic of the unreliable narrator.
They saw the play and said:
'True Copy' uses theatre in a simple yet truly grand way, as a medium between imagination and credulity
, Trouw (NL), Read the articleAs Jansen said, 'Sometimes it’s just delightful to be deceived'
, De Standaard (BE), Read the articleThe brain-frazzling thrill of 'True Copy', alongside the story it tells engagingly and with humour, is delivered by the stunning twists and turns it throws in
, The Arts Desk (UK), Read the article