“Seemingly, there are fakes still out there,” said one collector who was offered work in the scam. “Remember a few years ago when Condo paper works were just flying? These guys were selling that whole time.'
But the entire high-wire act of maintaining stratospheric numbers for graphite-on-paper drawings could be dismantled by the knowledge that a factory of fake makers exists in the land of Olympus, mysteriously pumping out fugazi Condos.
Who he is, exactly, is less clear. I was unfamiliar with the name, as were nearly a half dozen art advisers who were deep into the secondary Condo business circa 2018. The name and another known alias don’t have much of a digital imprint, and he did not respond to an email address provided by a source.
Golub said that he first heard about the fakes when a few works sans provenance showed up consigned to Doyle, a mostly niche auction house based in Manhattan—with outposts in Beverly Hills and Kensington, Maryland—that flies under the radar of most fine art folk. In November 2016, a tiny, untitled graphite-on-paper work purportedly made in 2009 sold for $23,750, more than the $15,000 high estimate.
A few months later, in November 2018, the Condo at Sotheby’s came to market, and failed to sell—a rarity, as Condos were so in demand at the time. The collective head-scratching was enough to inspire a post on the Instagram account @boughtinatauction, which highlights notable passes at auction. After one commenter noted that the work had been “Shopped to death prior to auction,” another noted that he had been offered another work.