From Russia with Doubt

In 2010 the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver director Adam Lerner did something unheard of in the museum world: he mounted a large exhibition of paintings without first knowing whether they were real or fakes. In From Russia with Doubt, Lerner skillfully weaves together the tale-from the initial eBay find to his controversial decision to exhibit the collection-guiding readers through the looking glass into the Byzantine corridors of the art world and beyond, describing the owners' quest to authenticate and appraise the would-be masterpieces. What he finds raises powerful questions about our own relationship to art.