This is pizzagate related because many believe that money for child trafficking is being laundered through the sale of art, and the CIA itself has been linked to child trafficking. Also, the CIA has been known to use modern art as a weapon .
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/arts/cia-secret-art-collection/index.html
'During the Cold War the CIA covertly supported contemporary painters, musicians, and writers, among others, as part of the Cultural Cold War. The effect of this spy craft on the trajectory of the art world was intriguing to me. '
A follow up to the CNN 5/16 article was written in 10/16 'A Visit to the CIA’s “Secret” Abstract Art Collection'
The CIA’s abstract art collection isn’t as “secret” as a series of articles made it seem—but it’s more politically significant than it appears, and there are still unanswered questions. Here, photographs of the collection are accessible to the public for the first time.
https://hyperallergic.com/294142/a-visit-to-the-the-cias-secret-abstract-art-collection/
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2impendingdoom ago
some ideas:
in addition to money laundering, this is a way to funnel cushy art related jobs to friends and family
the art can be reproduced and resold and no one will know.
the art can be super crappy or nonexistent and no one will know.
the art might be intended for framing (pun, sorry!) or setting up sting operations
they just fucking do whatever the fuck they want and are completely unaccountable
mudbear ago
Yeah thats been something i have been considering for a while, always wondered why modern art was such rubbish yet sells so high, only conclusion was that it was laundering
RweSure ago
This actually makes no sense at all. There is a genuine art market and it's been around for what...150 years or more?
Artprice.com has a database of 30 million individual purchases. The vast majority of these are resales.
If the only explanation was laundering, then, there would be booms and busts in the prices individual works or specific artists all the time. Resale prices would routinely collapse, because the previous prices were artificial. But you don't see that. You have some artists that go in and out of fashion, but you don't have a work sell for one million dollars and then upon resale go for $50,000. It just doesn't happen.
50 years ago, you could buy a Mark Rothko for 5 figures. Now, you'd be be lucky to get one for less than 1000 times that. This has nothing to do with money laundering. It has to do with if you have a Rothko and put it up for auction, you are going to get paid a lot of money. Rothko paintings have value. It's hard to articulate that value, but it exists. Put it in an auction and people are going to bid on it. And it's not some global-interconnected-money-laundering conspiracy. There is a genuine market for this and this is what is driving prices. This market is driven by how many super rich people there are in the world at any time. It closely corresponds to that.
ThePedoHunter ago
Bullshit....has everything to do with money laundering.....dont make me Google for your benefit some of the outright laughable shit that sells for millions, big millions.