A few weeks ago The Sunday Times in London ran a story about Russian artist Petro Wodkins who posed as an agent for a Central Asian dictator and contacted 30 London galleries to buy art for the despot. Surprisingly, none of the galleries told Wodkins there was a waiting list for the art.
The video of the project is now up on YouTube along with this description:
After setting up meetings with the art dealers he proposed a very lucrative deal. Five to ten million dollars investment in art, the catch was that the buyer was President Rahmon, one of the worst dictators in the world, oppressing Tajikistan for over 20 years. Tajikistan is one of poorest countries in central Asia, one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The question was if the art dealers were willing to sell art to the dictator, agreeing to be be paid from off-shore accounts, leaving no traces to the dictator and help ship the art in a very discreet way. In the film Price of Art you will learn what happened.
