Art of the Con

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Over the holiday weekend I read a book titled The Art of the Con by Anthony Amore. It is a book about art theft, a specialty of the author, who makes his living protecting art and investigating art thefts. The book is what I call a bathroom book in that it is light reading broken into small sections. I’m a lackadaisical reader and I knocked it out over the weekend.

If you like true crime and are looking for a quick easy read to kill time on a train, plane, or stagecoach, it is a good choice. The author has a good understanding of the world of fine art but is levelheaded about it. For instance, he acknowledges that Abstract Expressionism is easy to fake because it takes so little talent to produce. The writing style is conversational and direct, as you would expect from an investigator.

One of the interesting data points in the book is that close to 50% of fine art is fraudulent in some way. Either it is an outright forgery, a copy or was produced against the wishes of the artist by associates and understudies. The Great Masters, for instance, often relied on understudies to do much of their work so passing off the work of an understudy as that of the master is common.

Of course, art fraud is so common because it is so lucrative. Rich people collect art as a way to display their wealth within their peer group. It not only tells the other rich guys that you have loads of disposable income, but it also suggests you have cultured tastes. Therefore, high demand from rich people, looking for an emotional high, drives up prices for fine art and that means huge potential gains for fakers.

The strangely interesting chapter to me is on lithography where it is suggested that there are more fakes on the market than real art. The reason is “real” is not easy to pin down. As far as I can tell, the difference between authentic and fake in most cases is simply a signature. Even there, the signatures are often done by someone other than the artist. Everything about it feels shady, but people keep spending money on it.

I don’t know if it was intended, but the vibe I get from reading this chapter is the modern artists are so greedy they are fine with opening themselves up to massive fraud, as long as they can make a quick buck. The suggestion is that artists are just a click less dishonest than the con men that sell fake art to suckers. Either way, it’s hard to feel sorry for the artists.

If you are a fan of true crime, the strongest chapters are the first chapters, in fact, the one knock on the book is that it seems like the author ran out of material at about 175 pages and then filled in the rest with musings about the internet and infomercials. I found myself skipping through those quickly. It’s a book that starts strong and finishes with a whimper.

Those strong first chapters are on some of the great confidence men of the modern art world, who swindled millions from people that were savvy about the art game. The thing that stands out in his retelling is that these grifters are biologically driven to deceive people. Whether or not they feel guilt is debatable, but they know what they are doing is illegal and considered to be immoral. Yet, they keep doing it.

Unlike the Hollywood version of confidence men, the real life con-men confess quickly when caught. These are professional liars gifted at reading others. Once they see the cops have the facts, they become very cooperative, trying to earn sympathy points from the court, which often happens. Their skill at manipulating the emotions of others comes in handy in front of a judge.

The thing with con men is they see themselves as the victim so when they are caught, pleading for mercy comes naturally. The same skills they used to win the confidence of their marks are used to win sympathy from their captors. The exception is when they get caught and there’s no deal to be made. That’s when they get as mean as a cornered rat, which is not a bad comparison.

Ultimately what works for con-men is normal people have trust in others. That trust is based on altruism, a concern for the well-being of others. Confidence men lack that quality even within their kin group. It’s not that they hate their marks. It’s that they have no regard for them whatsoever. The mark has what the con-man desires to possess so he employs the necessary strategy to get what he wants.

Anyway, if you’re have an interest in true crime and need an airplane book, The Art of the Con is a good choice.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

7 Comments

Buckaroo Banzai #8031 January 7, 2016 1:19 pm 0
“Ultimately what works for con-men is normal people have trust in others. That trust is based on altruism, a concern for the well-being of others.”The concept of altruism is complicated and controversial. I think there is a more straightforward way to explain how trust works. I’d argue that there are two main components: (1) How easily you can identify with the other person, and (2) How accomplishment-oriented you are.Number (1) is pretty straightforward: we tend to identify most with people who are like us. If someone looks like you, talks like you, acts like you, you don’t want to let them down because psychologically healthy people don’t want to let themselves down. The trust progression begins with family, then tribe/community, then ethnic group, then race. The more of these four boxes you can tick off, the more trust is naturally engendered.Understanding (2) begins with the fact that nothing of consequence can get accomplished unless people work together. And that starts with trust. People who are determined to accomplish things understand that they must trust each other to do so. So within this particular group, this fact alone causes the default behavior to shift from distrust to trust.It’s worth noting that there is a difference between “lone wolf” con men– i.e. art forgers– and con men who work in teams, or groups, which was raised to an art form in the late 19th and early 20th century. The latter must trust each other to accomplish their goals, which makes their motivation a little more interesting. Of course, at the center of their moral compass was the principle that “you can’t con an honest man”. Which is hard to argue with when you think about it.
Dr. Mabuse #8015 January 6, 2016 12:27 pm 0
I saw an interesting TV true crime documentary on Mark William Hofmann, who was a very talented forger, and conned the Mormon Church for huge amounts of money for the “authentic” documents he claimed to have discovered. In the end, he murdered two people to keep his scam from unraveling. I think creating a reputation is 80% of the challenge; once people believe you’re genuine, you can get away with almost anything.
Peltast #8012 January 5, 2016 7:07 pm 0
Our economy, politics and media are run by con-men.
The Usual suspect #8014 January 6, 2016 9:17 am 0
..and elected by dupes. I think many non-artistic and more importantly many non-politically astute folks like to be and want to be conned. The willing victim(s) that feel good about their actions before and even after they are exposed as being dupes. Before voting for Obama they feel good because they “did the right thing” voting for the first minority, and afterwards they are blameless because they were conned. If you’re conned then you are relieved of all responsibility, after all it’s not my fault, I was deceived.
JohnTyler #8011 January 5, 2016 6:47 pm 0
Barack Obama has got to be one of the greatest con men in world history.A man who in his entire adult life never held a real job nor who accomplished a damn thing as an adult – who would never have been employed, for starters, as a manager of a McDonalds (he had ZERO job experience prior to becoming prez), but through his personality and verbal skills, bamboozled the world.He must wake up every day, look into the mirror, and slap himself to ensure he is not dreaming.Speaking of modern “art,” I am convinced that artists on the make (e.g., Warhol) insinuate themselves amongst the hoi polloi of Manhattan hoping that some really rich idiot will buy their “art,” knowing full well that just one sale for 100K for a work of art that ANY high school student could paint , would seal their reputation as a “genius” artist.These would be the “artists” who seek fame and fortune as their number one objective in life and are first rate con men ; spouting copious amounts of bullshit to interviewers and their hi society cocktail party acquaintances to maintain their aura as deep intellectuals and serious artists.Near my home are some very large pieces of steel “sculptures” decorating some athletic fields. Only an academic or art critic is stupid enough to call these welded steel plates “art.” Honestly, Stonehenge is more “artsy” and visually compelling than these welded steel plate ‘sculptures.”By the way, I have seen in person some of the works of Rembrandt, DaVinci, Michelangelo , Russell (the painter of Western life), etc., etc., and THAT is real art.
UKer #8013 January 6, 2016 4:55 am 0
I knew of a guy, years ago, who made living as an ‘artist’ because his father had lots of leftover large pieces of metal. The older man’s business involved stamping out circles/disks of steel from square pieces of steel, and so was left with hundreds of pieces of metal of a certain shape, namely sharp on four corners on one side and smooth, rounded on the other.The genius of the art-bereft son was to take these useless strips, at least before they were sent to the scrap metal dealer, and twist them into long, thin shapes which he welded together in different ways. Essentially they all looked the same given their size, nature and material and, yes, being raw steel they rusted quickly. Still, the local council bought some and displayed them prominently because someone without a brain thought they were artistic. I expect these ‘sculptures’ have long since been cleared away and sent to the scrap metal dealer, but it made the ‘artist’ a living for a while.
joe #8030 January 7, 2016 1:02 pm 0
The (D)irtbag elite took a huge risk running someone with such huge negatives and obviously dirty background – their motivation had to be high. I think Obama has a talent for Ericksonian “talking” hypnosis which made him an ideal “closer” for the indocrinated masses of (D)umbclucks. He was able to whip the masses into fanatic levels of stupidity and has created this situation where he is able to do whatever he wants and any who object are treated as evil.The Ericksonian method is NOT a matter of speaking skills, of sound logic and good persuasion. It’s a way of droning platitudes at people until their conscious mind tires of sorting the drivel and accepts “suggestions”, which then become part of the person’s reality – unexamined for BS.I think this phenomenom needs to be studied and recognized for what it is, so that we don’t get stuck with another screwed up ahole leader – it takes a real ahole to WANT to use this method on people, much less practice it to perfection. It’s a way to abuse the trust of people who trust you, and highly offensive to those who use their brains.I was dubious most of the way through this long read – as it says, you have to read the whole thing to get the picture.Obama’s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosissame thing? in pdf formhttp://www.pennypresslv.com/Obama%27s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosis_techniques_in_His_Speeches.pdf


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