Art: Sculpture as Good as Old

A young Thai is a modern master of fake antiquities

Three Cambodian heads gazed nobly at the reader from the glossy cover of Arts of Asia, an elegant and respected bi-monthly published in Hong Kong. The sandstone faces, 900-year-old survivors of the fabled Khmer kingdom of Angkor, had been chosen to set the theme of a recent issue devoted to antique Cambodian art, a high-priced passion among collectors around the world. Few readers knew that the images on the cover had been given new noses and restorative face-lifts by a young Thai artist known simply as Yas. Or that Yas, in his...

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