The artist who never existed
September 1 2015
Picture: Artinfo
A group of forgers in Germany have got around the traditional problems faced by art fakers, such as learning how to mimic a particular artist and creating convincing false provenances: instead, they simply created an entirely new persona. Karl Waldman's work has sold at auction for almost $15,000 (the above picture sold in Paris in 2011), and he has even entered museum collections (like the Kunsthaus Dresden). But he seems never to have actually existed.
Now the German police are on the case. But what is the crime? Only, surely, the gullibility of the contemporary art market.
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