26 min listen
Art, Lies, and Instagram: How Catfishing ‘Collectors’ Duped the Art World
FromThe Art Angle
ratings:
Length:
27 minutes
Released:
Feb 3, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
This week’s story begins with an art purchase made like so many others... .
A collector notices his peers talking up an artwork on Instagram, so he messages the artist’s dealer and makes a purchase. In this case, there was just one problem: neither the collector peers nor the artist actually exist.
That fateful transaction is just the tip of the iceberg of a broader scheme: someone (quite possibly a group of people) created fake social media profiles for jet-setting Italian collectors to promote a fake artist—and ended up making real money in the process.
The tale reveals just how easy it is to play the part of an art-world sophisticate, and how little we tend to know about the person on the other end of the line.
On this week's episode, Artnet News Europe Editor Kate Brown joins Executive Editor Julia Halperin to discuss the story she wrote about catfishing collectors, fake artists, and the twisted tale that had her chasing ghosts all over the web.
A collector notices his peers talking up an artwork on Instagram, so he messages the artist’s dealer and makes a purchase. In this case, there was just one problem: neither the collector peers nor the artist actually exist.
That fateful transaction is just the tip of the iceberg of a broader scheme: someone (quite possibly a group of people) created fake social media profiles for jet-setting Italian collectors to promote a fake artist—and ended up making real money in the process.
The tale reveals just how easy it is to play the part of an art-world sophisticate, and how little we tend to know about the person on the other end of the line.
On this week's episode, Artnet News Europe Editor Kate Brown joins Executive Editor Julia Halperin to discuss the story she wrote about catfishing collectors, fake artists, and the twisted tale that had her chasing ghosts all over the web.
Released:
Feb 3, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
How an Artist’s $120,000 Banana Ate the World: At the start of December, the Art Angle team had other, loftier ideas for the show's first Christmas episode. Maybe we would dig into the most important developments in the art world this past year or examine the in Hong Kong and their . But then, we... by The Art Angle