Jasper Johns testifies in fraud case

Johns, one of New York’s more reclusive artists, appeared in a Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, to testify in the case of Brian Ramnarine, who owned the Empire Bronze Art Foundry in Long Island City, Queens, and now stands accused of creating and attempting to sell at least 13 fake sculptures between 2010 and 2013, reports The New York Times. Among them was one of Johns’s rare ‘flag’ sculptures. Johns told the court that the former foundry owner had failed to return one of the artist’s molds and that he had subsequently been shown a flag sculpture that he failed to recognise. “I was shown the cast of a flag I had never authorised,” he stated. “And it had come from Brian.” The case continues.