Heard it a few times and it certainly seems like something that would happen but is there any proof or real world examples?
Can an Appraiser just make something worth $20m based purely on their say so?
EDIT: Thanks some great replies! and yeah i was asking more about the tax evasion part than the 'modern art is bad lol' angle.
I mean theres a difference between disliking something personally and denigrating the actual thing itself as "oh its just a line on canvas my kid could do this".
I guess it depends on the art. I think the market has lifted some frankly crappy art to be worth millions for bulshit reasons that being said the reverse is also likely true and there might be another Picasso out there who can't sell a painting
Well, some artists are precisely that. I remember meeting this cool cat from Austria. Then I saw his art. It was stuff like you'd make in fifth grade art class with construction paper, with little windows you could open, like a pop-up book. And all of it monochrome, in fifty shades of gray. It was literally something a kid could make. Yet he was a real artist, I looked up his website. Works for sale at museums and such.