In the early 2000s, while much of the Western world was struggling with one of the recurring economic and financial crises of our time, certain sectors allowed stratospheric profits to those with millions of dollars to invest. One such sector was contemporary art, a field that saw unknown artists rapidly become veritable stars, with paintings, murals, and installations capable of fetching staggering prices in sales and auctions. Fueling a self-referential system that largely steered the prices of works and artists was a small circle of brokers, dealers, experts, gallery owners, and collectors who together conspired to manipulate the market with mechanisms not unlike those of stock market speculation and the famous and infamous subprime mortgages.
In this golden undergrowth, made of negotiations and agreements sealed with handshakes, promises of payment and threats for delayed bank transfers, there naturally moved fixers and schemers and even real swindlers like the protagonist of Quel che luccica (Altrecose, 2026, pp. 384, also e-book, translated by Luca Bernardi), Inigo Philbrick, who became famous as the author of “the biggest scam ever in the art market”.
To be clear, we're talking about something like over $80 million thanks to fictitious sales, speculation, and the simultaneous sale of the same work to multiple people, or works for which no rights were held. This true story is told in the book by an exceptional witness, Orlando Whitfield, who was himself active in the art market for fifteen years and, above all, longtime partner of the protagonist of That Which Glitters, especially in the early years of his dazzling and (apparently) unstoppable rise.
Orlando and Inigo met in the early 2000s in London, at Goldsmiths University, and quickly became friends. After completing his studies, Orlando sought his own uncertain path in the world of art and galleries, but meanwhile he closely observed Inigo's formidable rise as a dealer in a world of private jets and multi-million dollar auctions, aided by his charisma and powers of seduction. Inigo, in fact, demonstrated his skill as a snake charmer and quickly gained entry into one of the world's most exclusive clubs: the one that brings together collectors and dealers of six-figure art. In the book, Orlando Whitfield recounts their respective journeys and their complicity, but also the mysteries Inigo keeps him away from and doubts about the sincerity of their friendship. All That Glitters is, in fact, a deliciously ferocious and tantalizing parable about the price of beauty, the power of charisma, and the limits of friendship. At the same time, it effectively describes the astonishing and hidden mechanisms of the art business. A business where nothing is ever as it seems, and where artworks too often "shine" according to the whims of a few who control the market . We are thus talking about a business run by predators, like Wall Street, where it's easy to lose track of limits and it takes very little to go from riches to rags.
Inigo ultimately pushes things too far and finds himself on the run on a Pacific island, with the FBI hot on his heels, chasing him to the ends of the earth and then locking him up in an American prison. End of trail? A fitting conclusion to a con man's story? Or has Inigo simply stumbled and is waiting for the right opportunity to rejoin the gang, welcomed as some sort of prodigal son?
Orlando Whitfield has no illusions, and he doesn't delude us. "Pecunia non olet," money has no smell, said a Roman emperor, and this also applies to the art world. Inigo defrauded, but he also knew how to generate enormous profits. He was a kind of lubricant in a machine that hasn't stopped turning and likely hasn't yet developed the mechanisms to do without people like this.