By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris)
“Authenticating a painting-especially an older one-is usually an incredibly painstaking process, and in many cases, the validity of works attributed to the likes of even Rembrandt remain in dispute indefinitely.”
-Anthony M. Amore (from The Art of The Con)
I can appreciate paintings and sculptures (especially from the Renaissance period), and despite my distaste for religion I have a particular fondness for stained glass windows. I have marveled at ancient masterpieces by anonymous craftsmen and more than a few times admired modern works from contemporary artists. But my apartment is primarily decorated with laminated movie posters, so I guess my idea of great art is essentially advertisements made by unknowns in a Hollywood graphic design department. Needless to say I have never been all that curious about the business side of art, which I always thought to be dull. The darker side of the aforementioned industry is the subject of The Art of The Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World, a new book by Anthony M. Amore.
I was surprised by what I discovered reading The Art of The Con. I was expecting something more along the lines of a scathing exposé on the pretentious, patronizing and pompous world of the modern scene (like how anyone would, say, pay $1.8 million for a painting of three stripes, like our own Nation Gallery of Canada did for Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire in 1987…true story! Talk about a con, but I digress). Instead I was given a glimpse into the amazingly complex, broad, and ridiculously profitable industry of art larceny.
Each chapter focuses on a different incident, with its own unique characters and scams. Amore does an efficient job setting up the background and his overall style is effective, although at times the writing gets a little awkward and clunky, for example sentences like “…Cruz accepted the job and went to work duplicating the work.” (Page 160).
The Art of The Con reads like a cold, dry police report or court document written by Joe “just the facts” Friday (not surprising, given the author’s background in security and investigation), with rare glimpses of humour and the occasional smart observation, which leads to what I don’t like about the book: It is so bland. Numerous circumstances cross over into the absurd (at least to an outsider), like how some people have priceless artworks in their modest homes or apartments with no safety measures or insurance, or how blatantly dishonest or brazen the perpetrators can be, or the laughably bad quality of some forgeries that fool experts, just begging for wry, witty comments that sadly never come.
Despite its shortcomings (which I readily admit is just my personal taste), The Art of The Con is consistently intriguing and endlessly informative, not uniquely for lovers of fine art, but for those who enjoy good, real-crime stories as well.
