At the core of Gabriel de la Mora’s artistic practice is an exploration of appropriation and authorship. D.A.S., 1974 capas de pintura (2011) is part of a larger body of work, which culminated in the 2011 exhibition OriginallyFake. In this series, the artist acquired forged works of famous Mexican modernists such as Mathias Goeritz and Frida Kahlo, manipulating the work through a series of laborious processes. The present lot is centered on a forged David Alfaro Siqueiros painting of a flaming tree, which the artist purchased at an open- air market in Mexico City. As a means of displacing the central focal point of the composition, the artist has applied hundreds of layers of different color paints in a calculated sequence in relation to the colors employed in the forgery. While the top layer is a stark white, when examined on the side, the layers of paint reveal themselves. De la Mora not only executed this paint sequence on the canvas, but also on the frame that the piece was originally shown in. De la Mora’s manipulation of one piece has led to the creation of an entirely new “legitimate” artwork. Through this new artwork, de la Mora has blurred the lines between his work and the work of the forger, inviting viewers not only to contemplate the question of authorship but to also examine the tensions between authenticity and fraud.