DUSHANBE, September 30, 2013, Asia-Plus — A Russian artist posing as an aide to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon says a number of prominent British galleries were ready to sell high-priced works of art to the Central Asian leader using offshore accounts, Radio Liberty reports.
Britain”s
Sunday Times
reports that the Russian, a conceptual artist who works under the pseudonym Petro Wodkins, said he pretended to negotiate the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of art by China”s Ai Weiwei and Britain”s Damien Hurst on behalf of Rahmon.
Wodkins said almost none of the galleries he contacted were deterred by Rahmon”s poor human rights record or his request to use an offshore account to prevent ordinary, “poor” Tajiks from finding out.
Wodkins, who recorded his fake negotiations, is planning to release an online video about his findings this week.
Some of the galleries told the
Times
the talks were in an early stage and that the deals would not have gone through.
