Photo District News has an update on the status of the California post-mortem publicity rights bill:
"The ... bill has not passed and almost certainly won't in the near future. The California legislature is scrambling to hammer out a budget with just two days left in the legislative session, which typically gets extended only for the purpose of passing a budget. A source in the office of California Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the lawmaker who introduced the bill, confirmed that the Senate was unlikely to vote on this bill before a budget is passed, and that the legislature will likely adjourn when that happens. The bill would need to pass both legislative houses and be signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before becoming law."
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The War on Graffiti
USA Today has an update on the criminal case against Alain Mariduena (AKA KET), mentioned earlier here, and says:
"The case is part of a new war on American graffiti, that long-controversial hybrid of art and vandalism. But fans and critics agree on this much: Never has so much been done to fight graffiti, and never has there been so much of it."
"The case is part of a new war on American graffiti, that long-controversial hybrid of art and vandalism. But fans and critics agree on this much: Never has so much been done to fight graffiti, and never has there been so much of it."
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Comment Period Extended
The New York Times reports that New York City has extended the comment period on proposed photography rules (mentioned earlier here) that would require a permit and proof of $1 million in insurance for any group of (a) two or more people filming in one location for 30 minutes or (b) five or more people using a tripod camera for more than 10 minutes. The original deadline was June 27, but it's been extended to Aug. 3.
Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse got their comments in on time.
Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse got their comments in on time.
Scene From a Mall
The Seattle Times reports on a theft of two Picasso etchings from a gallery in the Bellevue Square shopping mall last week:
"The ... art heist took just minutes. The woman distracted the salesperson with a question on the merits of a piece conveniently located at the far end of the gallery. The two men, meanwhile, lifted the Picasso etchings from the wall and strolled out into the airy mall. One of the men reportedly was on his cellphone the entire time. The gallery employee didn't immediately notice the theft. By the time the police were notified, the trio had long since blended into the sea of shoppers ..."
Derek Fincham comments:
"The most likely scenario is that a subsequent purchaser who didn't know about the works' tainted past will end up in a dispute with the gallery or the insurance company if the gallery was able to insure the works. The Seattle piece says 'unscrupulous art collectors have few qualms about purchasing stolen pieces for their private collections.' I think that may be over-stating the case a bit. In most situations the ultimate litigant is a buyer who was unaware a work had been stolen. This is why buyers should always consult organizations like the Art Loss Register before every significant purchase, and provenance should be thoroughly researched."
"The ... art heist took just minutes. The woman distracted the salesperson with a question on the merits of a piece conveniently located at the far end of the gallery. The two men, meanwhile, lifted the Picasso etchings from the wall and strolled out into the airy mall. One of the men reportedly was on his cellphone the entire time. The gallery employee didn't immediately notice the theft. By the time the police were notified, the trio had long since blended into the sea of shoppers ..."
Derek Fincham comments:
"The most likely scenario is that a subsequent purchaser who didn't know about the works' tainted past will end up in a dispute with the gallery or the insurance company if the gallery was able to insure the works. The Seattle piece says 'unscrupulous art collectors have few qualms about purchasing stolen pieces for their private collections.' I think that may be over-stating the case a bit. In most situations the ultimate litigant is a buyer who was unaware a work had been stolen. This is why buyers should always consult organizations like the Art Loss Register before every significant purchase, and provenance should be thoroughly researched."
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Update on the Artist Deduction Bill
Americans for the Arts has an update on the status of the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, discusssed earlier here:
"The Artist-Museum Partnership Act (commonly known as the 'Artist Deduction bill') has been gaining co-sponsors since it was re-introduced earlier this year. The House bill H.R. 1524 introduced by Reps. John Lewis (D-GA) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN) now has 50 co-sponsors. Additionally, the Senate bill S. 548 introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) has 23 co-sponsors. The legislation supports individual artists by allowing them to take a fair-market value tax deduction for tangible works they donate to nonprofit collecting and educational organizations, and it benefits the public by giving them access to more art. Many of the cosponsors are legislators who sit on the tax-writing committees, which would demonstrate a real interest in approving this legislation."
"The Artist-Museum Partnership Act (commonly known as the 'Artist Deduction bill') has been gaining co-sponsors since it was re-introduced earlier this year. The House bill H.R. 1524 introduced by Reps. John Lewis (D-GA) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN) now has 50 co-sponsors. Additionally, the Senate bill S. 548 introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) has 23 co-sponsors. The legislation supports individual artists by allowing them to take a fair-market value tax deduction for tangible works they donate to nonprofit collecting and educational organizations, and it benefits the public by giving them access to more art. Many of the cosponsors are legislators who sit on the tax-writing committees, which would demonstrate a real interest in approving this legislation."
Cellphones and stolen art (UPDATED)
David Nishimura notes this Discovery News story on the development of cellphone technology that could help identify stolen art (mentioned earlier here):
"A cell phone picture could be worth a million dollars — particularly if it's a snapshot of a piece of stolen art.
"A new software tool plays detective by automatically comparing cell phone photos with images in a database of stolen art. The technology could help restore stolen goods to their rightful owners and solve the hundreds of art theft cases opened each year in the United States alone.
...
"For now, the system works on paintings, carpets and coins, but the researchers already have plans to go beyond those.
"'Extensions are on the way to make the system suitable for thee-dimensional objects. These extensions will cover sculptures as well as three-dimensional objects in general,' said Bertram Nickolay, head of the department Security Technology at the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, Germany."
Nishimura's take:
"Sounds like a pretty simple and practicable idea, patching together well-established technologies. Take a database of images of stolen artworks, and search it using other images and a pattern-matching application. You'll end up with some false positives, of course, but as long as the matching algorithm is reasonably sophisticated, you should still have a useful tool for flagging possible problem paintings for further investigation."
UPDATE: Derek Fincham also likes the idea, but says "the problem of course is which database to check. At present there are a number of different theft databases. The largest and most successful is the Art Loss Register. However that site is not accessible to the public at large. You have to pay for and request the ALR to conduct its own search of its data. ... [A]s I've argued before, the first company which figures out how to make a simple, universal and easy-to-use database will really stand out, and will also really help to legitimize the art and antiquities trade generally. Until such a database exists though, we will continue to see good faith purchasers buying stolen or illicitly excavated works leading to the classic art law dispute between an original owner and a good faith purchaser."
"A cell phone picture could be worth a million dollars — particularly if it's a snapshot of a piece of stolen art.
"A new software tool plays detective by automatically comparing cell phone photos with images in a database of stolen art. The technology could help restore stolen goods to their rightful owners and solve the hundreds of art theft cases opened each year in the United States alone.
...
"For now, the system works on paintings, carpets and coins, but the researchers already have plans to go beyond those.
"'Extensions are on the way to make the system suitable for thee-dimensional objects. These extensions will cover sculptures as well as three-dimensional objects in general,' said Bertram Nickolay, head of the department Security Technology at the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, Germany."
Nishimura's take:
"Sounds like a pretty simple and practicable idea, patching together well-established technologies. Take a database of images of stolen artworks, and search it using other images and a pattern-matching application. You'll end up with some false positives, of course, but as long as the matching algorithm is reasonably sophisticated, you should still have a useful tool for flagging possible problem paintings for further investigation."
UPDATE: Derek Fincham also likes the idea, but says "the problem of course is which database to check. At present there are a number of different theft databases. The largest and most successful is the Art Loss Register. However that site is not accessible to the public at large. You have to pay for and request the ALR to conduct its own search of its data. ... [A]s I've argued before, the first company which figures out how to make a simple, universal and easy-to-use database will really stand out, and will also really help to legitimize the art and antiquities trade generally. Until such a database exists though, we will continue to see good faith purchasers buying stolen or illicitly excavated works leading to the classic art law dispute between an original owner and a good faith purchaser."
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Fisk Trial Delayed
The Fisk-O'Keeffe trial, which was supposed to begin next week, has been postponed until Sept. 18. Jonathan Marx summarizes the current state of play in The Nashville Tennessean:
"[The Court] has already ruled that Fisk cannot sell Georgia O'Keeffe's Radiator Building — Night, New York or Marsden Hartley's Painting No. 3, both of which were donated to the school by painter O'Keeffe in 1949 as part of the Stieglitz Collection. ...
"The trial will address the claim of the O'Keeffe Museum ... that Fisk University has violated the conditions of O'Keeffe's gift to the school — and therefore the entire Stieglitz Collection should go back to the museum.
"'As a matter of general law, when a gift with conditions is breached, one of the remedies is that the gift gets returned to the giver,' said Saul Cohen, president of the board of the O'Keeffe Museum. 'That's a standard remedy: reversion. Another possibility is damages.'"
My most recent post on this matter is here.
"[The Court] has already ruled that Fisk cannot sell Georgia O'Keeffe's Radiator Building — Night, New York or Marsden Hartley's Painting No. 3, both of which were donated to the school by painter O'Keeffe in 1949 as part of the Stieglitz Collection. ...
"The trial will address the claim of the O'Keeffe Museum ... that Fisk University has violated the conditions of O'Keeffe's gift to the school — and therefore the entire Stieglitz Collection should go back to the museum.
"'As a matter of general law, when a gift with conditions is breached, one of the remedies is that the gift gets returned to the giver,' said Saul Cohen, president of the board of the O'Keeffe Museum. 'That's a standard remedy: reversion. Another possibility is damages.'"
My most recent post on this matter is here.
Hedge Funds Expanding Into Art
The New York Times had a story yesterday on how hedge funds are expanding into investments beyond stocks and bonds ... including art. As I've discussed in previous posts (e.g., here), the jury is still out on art investment funds, but the article suggests that investors might be willing to absorb some extra risk "in exchange for some fun and a lively dinner party conversation. In June, Mr. Hoffman [of London's Fine Art Fund] invited investors in one of his art funds to Geneva to admire and discuss some Picasso and Ed Ruscha paintings over lunch. ... [I]nvestors in WMG’s photography fund will get the first right to buy any prints in the fund." One investment manager is quoted as saying, "It’s really as much a lifestyle thing as an investment."
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Red Elvis Case
Still catching up on things that happened when I was away, I should note that the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Peter Brant is the rightful owner of Warhol's "Red Elvis," which he paid $2.9 million for in 2000 but, according to this New York Daily News story, is now worth "as much as $25 million."
The work was owned by Kerstin Lindholm, who bought it in 1987 for $300,000 from a Swedish dealer named Anders Malmberg, with whom she'd had a longstanding business relationship. In 2000, claiming to have bought the work from Lindholm, Malmberg sold it to Brant. In 2001, Lindholm learned of the unauthorized sale and demanded that Brant return the work to her. He refused, and the lawsuit ensued.
In response to the decision, a friend emailed: "Can you explain why we're not seeing the obvious ruling, i.e. Brant is required to give this painting back to Lindholm and Malmberg is required to give Brant his money back? This case has never made sense to me."
Well, for one thing, according to the Daily News, "no one can find where [Malmberg] hid or spent the nearly $3 million." If that's true, requiring Brant to give the painting back to Lindholm would mean that he's out $3 million.
Leaving that aside, the explanation for the result lies in the concept of entrustment. The basic rule is of course that you can't get good title from a thief. Malmberg was in essence a thief here (the decision mentions in a footnote that "in March 2003, the Swedish court convicted Malmberg of gross fraud embezzlement," and the Daily News story says he "went to jail"), so it's tempting to wonder how Brant could have acquired good title from him. The answer is that when one party entrusts goods to another party (as Lindholm did to Malmberg here), the entrustee can (under certain circumstances) transfer good title, regardless of any conditions expressed between the parties and even if the entrustee's actions are criminal.
What are the circumstances under which good title can be conveyed? First, that the entrustee is a "merchant" who deals in goods of the relevant kind (which Malmberg clearly was here). And second, that the sale is to a "buyer in the ordinary course of business" -- i.e., someone who buys "in good faith" and without knowledge that the sale violates anyone's rights (which Brant was found to be here; the basic idea was that, under the circumstances, it was reasonable for Brant to believe that Malmberg really was the owner of the work).
The basic rationale for this rule is that where the entruster and the buyer are both "innocent," the loss should fall on the former, since she's in a better position to avoid the loss (by not putting the work in the hands of the dishonest middleman).
An AP story on the decision is here. The U.C.C. entrustment provision, § 2-403(2), is here. The Connecticut Supreme Court decision is here.
The work was owned by Kerstin Lindholm, who bought it in 1987 for $300,000 from a Swedish dealer named Anders Malmberg, with whom she'd had a longstanding business relationship. In 2000, claiming to have bought the work from Lindholm, Malmberg sold it to Brant. In 2001, Lindholm learned of the unauthorized sale and demanded that Brant return the work to her. He refused, and the lawsuit ensued.
In response to the decision, a friend emailed: "Can you explain why we're not seeing the obvious ruling, i.e. Brant is required to give this painting back to Lindholm and Malmberg is required to give Brant his money back? This case has never made sense to me."
Well, for one thing, according to the Daily News, "no one can find where [Malmberg] hid or spent the nearly $3 million." If that's true, requiring Brant to give the painting back to Lindholm would mean that he's out $3 million.
Leaving that aside, the explanation for the result lies in the concept of entrustment. The basic rule is of course that you can't get good title from a thief. Malmberg was in essence a thief here (the decision mentions in a footnote that "in March 2003, the Swedish court convicted Malmberg of gross fraud embezzlement," and the Daily News story says he "went to jail"), so it's tempting to wonder how Brant could have acquired good title from him. The answer is that when one party entrusts goods to another party (as Lindholm did to Malmberg here), the entrustee can (under certain circumstances) transfer good title, regardless of any conditions expressed between the parties and even if the entrustee's actions are criminal.
What are the circumstances under which good title can be conveyed? First, that the entrustee is a "merchant" who deals in goods of the relevant kind (which Malmberg clearly was here). And second, that the sale is to a "buyer in the ordinary course of business" -- i.e., someone who buys "in good faith" and without knowledge that the sale violates anyone's rights (which Brant was found to be here; the basic idea was that, under the circumstances, it was reasonable for Brant to believe that Malmberg really was the owner of the work).
The basic rationale for this rule is that where the entruster and the buyer are both "innocent," the loss should fall on the former, since she's in a better position to avoid the loss (by not putting the work in the hands of the dishonest middleman).
An AP story on the decision is here. The U.C.C. entrustment provision, § 2-403(2), is here. The Connecticut Supreme Court decision is here.
Rarefied AIR
This week's New York magazine has a piece suggesting that New York City "appears to be" stepping up enforcement of Soho's artist-in-residence laws:
"In 1977, Soho, and Noho, were zoned for 'joint living-working' spaces, meaning properties there are for so-called artists-in-residence (AIR) only. ... It’s a little-known fact that to live in a loft in most Soho buildings, at least one loft resident has to be certified by the city as an artist. In typical New York fashion, the vetting process is byzantine, requiring individuals to be engaged in the 'fine arts'; to demonstrate a 'serious, consistent commitment' to their art; and need a large space."
According to the article, "brokers say that until recently, there was no real reason to worry," but "as more co-ops bring their properties up to code or convert to condominiums, enforcement appears to be stepping up" and "apparently, there are more than a few co-ops under Department of Buildings scrutiny for AIR-related violations." (A DOB spokesperson says, “The law has not changed, nor has our enforcement of the law. We continue to enforce the AIR regulations as we always have.")
"In 1977, Soho, and Noho, were zoned for 'joint living-working' spaces, meaning properties there are for so-called artists-in-residence (AIR) only. ... It’s a little-known fact that to live in a loft in most Soho buildings, at least one loft resident has to be certified by the city as an artist. In typical New York fashion, the vetting process is byzantine, requiring individuals to be engaged in the 'fine arts'; to demonstrate a 'serious, consistent commitment' to their art; and need a large space."
According to the article, "brokers say that until recently, there was no real reason to worry," but "as more co-ops bring their properties up to code or convert to condominiums, enforcement appears to be stepping up" and "apparently, there are more than a few co-ops under Department of Buildings scrutiny for AIR-related violations." (A DOB spokesperson says, “The law has not changed, nor has our enforcement of the law. We continue to enforce the AIR regulations as we always have.")
Monday, July 09, 2007
No do-overs
This AP story on Montgomery County's last-ditch effort to keep the Barnes from moving to Philadelphia includes the following from Harvard lawprof Bruce Mann:
"The commissioners don't have standing to sue, and too much time has elapsed, he said. 'There's no part of the judicial system that permits do-overs years after an issue has been adjudicated just because someone steps up and says, "Hey, I have an idea,"' said Mann, who has followed the Barnes case. 'The fact the county is weighing in so long after the fact is just bizarre.'"
Tom Infield has much more in today's Philadelphia Inquirer (including a fresh quote from Mann, who now hedges his bets, if ever so slightly: ""I would think it is low probability, but it has been such a crazy case for years that it can't be ruled out").
Both stories also mention the latest plan by Congressman Jim Gerlach to block the move: "Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., said Monday he has asked the Interior Department whether it is possible to designate the Barnes Foundation's Lower Merion campus a national historical landmark, even without the consent of the board. Such a designation would block the foundation from moving, he said." This is Gerlach's Plan B; Plan A was discussed here.
"The commissioners don't have standing to sue, and too much time has elapsed, he said. 'There's no part of the judicial system that permits do-overs years after an issue has been adjudicated just because someone steps up and says, "Hey, I have an idea,"' said Mann, who has followed the Barnes case. 'The fact the county is weighing in so long after the fact is just bizarre.'"
Tom Infield has much more in today's Philadelphia Inquirer (including a fresh quote from Mann, who now hedges his bets, if ever so slightly: ""I would think it is low probability, but it has been such a crazy case for years that it can't be ruled out").
Both stories also mention the latest plan by Congressman Jim Gerlach to block the move: "Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., said Monday he has asked the Interior Department whether it is possible to designate the Barnes Foundation's Lower Merion campus a national historical landmark, even without the consent of the board. Such a designation would block the foundation from moving, he said." This is Gerlach's Plan B; Plan A was discussed here.
"City May Seek Permit and Insurance for Many Kinds of Public Photography"
Another story from over the break: New York City is considering new rules that "would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and [$1 million in] insurance. The same requirements would apply to any group of five or more people who plan to use a tripod in a public location for more than 10 minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment."
Glenn Reynolds pronounces it the "dumb idea of the week." Ann Althouse says it's "idiotic."
Glenn Reynolds pronounces it the "dumb idea of the week." Ann Althouse says it's "idiotic."
Gee's Bend News
The latest news in the Gee's Bend lawsuits is that the federal court judge in the third of the three lawsuits is trying to determine the value of the two quilts at issue (which were recently returned to the plaintiff) in order to figure out whether the $75,000 threshold for diversity jurisdiction has been met.
You say "ransom," I say "a more comfortable distribution of resources"
Carol Vogel's latest Inside Art column reported that the Metropolitan Museum was the buyer -- for $3.18 million, or more than 12 times Sotheby's high estimate -- of one of the antiquities recently deaccessioned by the Albright-Knox.
Lee Rosenbaum finds it "distressing that such a heavy ransom must be exacted from a public institution to rescue what should never have left the public domain in the first place." But why not, instead, see it as the kind of mutually advantageous trade between public institutions that we ought to encourage more of (Fisk-O'Keeffe is another example that comes immediately to mind)? As Adrian Ellis put it in a piece on deaccessioning a couple years ago:
"One approach that respects the intentions underpinning the current position on de-accessioning whilst allowing for a more balanced allocation of resources might be for the museum community to see itself more as just that – a community – and allow for a more comfortable distribution of resources between cash poor asset rich institutions and asset poor cash rich ones, allowing them to trade to mutual advantage."
The piece went on view in the Met’s Ancient Near-Eastern galleries on Friday.
Lee Rosenbaum finds it "distressing that such a heavy ransom must be exacted from a public institution to rescue what should never have left the public domain in the first place." But why not, instead, see it as the kind of mutually advantageous trade between public institutions that we ought to encourage more of (Fisk-O'Keeffe is another example that comes immediately to mind)? As Adrian Ellis put it in a piece on deaccessioning a couple years ago:
"One approach that respects the intentions underpinning the current position on de-accessioning whilst allowing for a more balanced allocation of resources might be for the museum community to see itself more as just that – a community – and allow for a more comfortable distribution of resources between cash poor asset rich institutions and asset poor cash rich ones, allowing them to trade to mutual advantage."
The piece went on view in the Met’s Ancient Near-Eastern galleries on Friday.
Marilyn Monroe News
In other news from while I was away, the proposed N.Y. legislation to grant post-mortem rights of publicity did not make it through before the summer recess. See here. I suspect we haven't heard the last of it, however.
A similar bill is currently making its way through the California legislature.
A similar bill is currently making its way through the California legislature.
More Machu Picchu
Before the break, I mentioned Arthur Lubow's fascinating New York Times Magazine article on the battle between Peru and Yale over certain Machu Picchu artifacts. JL at Modern Kicks wonders what legal arguments "Yale might employ in the face of what seem like compelling Peruvian arguments." Since, as Lubow points out, "if the case winds up in the United States courts, its disposition may be determined by narrowly legalistic interpretations of specific Peruvian laws and proclamations," I'm afraid I can't be of much help there, but I can point you to Derek Fincham, who's the go-to guy on all cultural property matters. He finds the following recent offer by Yale to settle the dispute "a fair compromise which would be a win for both sides":
"Yale offered to send back 'the museum-quality (that is, whole) objects excavated by Bingham at Machu Picchu' for display in a 'state-of-the-art museum exclusively dedicated to Machu Picchu' that would be opened in Cuzco in collaboration with Yale on the centennial anniversary of Bingham's 1911 discovery of the site. To help raise money for the museum, Yale would resurrect its touring exhibition, which ... would end up permanently in Cuzco. This represents a significant concession over Yale's past proposal to divide possession of the approximately 300 display-worthy objects. The research collection, however, would continue to reside in New Haven. ... In other words, Peru's pride will be assuaged if Yale's research needs can be met. Whether Peru will consent to those terms - indeed, whether the ... government is at liberty to do so, legally or politically - is uncertain."
"Yale offered to send back 'the museum-quality (that is, whole) objects excavated by Bingham at Machu Picchu' for display in a 'state-of-the-art museum exclusively dedicated to Machu Picchu' that would be opened in Cuzco in collaboration with Yale on the centennial anniversary of Bingham's 1911 discovery of the site. To help raise money for the museum, Yale would resurrect its touring exhibition, which ... would end up permanently in Cuzco. This represents a significant concession over Yale's past proposal to divide possession of the approximately 300 display-worthy objects. The research collection, however, would continue to reside in New Haven. ... In other words, Peru's pride will be assuaged if Yale's research needs can be met. Whether Peru will consent to those terms - indeed, whether the ... government is at liberty to do so, legally or politically - is uncertain."
Sunday, July 01, 2007
"What the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art has done in response to the Christoph Büchel mess is sad, dumb, and shameful" (UPDATED)
That's the lede from Boston Globe art critic Ken Johnson's piece in today's paper.
It closes:
"Obviously, Mass MoCA's faith in the artist and his process was sorely tested. But does that warrant exacting revenge by turning his project into a show that misrepresents, dishonors, vilifies, and even ridicules him? A show that admits no responsibility for the project's failure on the museum's part and that affirms popular perceptions of our most innovative contemporary artists as frauds and charlatans?
"I don't think so."
UPDATE: Time magazine's Richard Lacayo agrees: "The museum's decision to (sort of) exhibit Buchel's installation in half finished form has always struck me as not so much a reasonable curatorial judgment call as an institutional temper tantrum ...."
It closes:
"Obviously, Mass MoCA's faith in the artist and his process was sorely tested. But does that warrant exacting revenge by turning his project into a show that misrepresents, dishonors, vilifies, and even ridicules him? A show that admits no responsibility for the project's failure on the museum's part and that affirms popular perceptions of our most innovative contemporary artists as frauds and charlatans?
"I don't think so."
UPDATE: Time magazine's Richard Lacayo agrees: "The museum's decision to (sort of) exhibit Buchel's installation in half finished form has always struck me as not so much a reasonable curatorial judgment call as an institutional temper tantrum ...."
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Programming Note
Blogging will be light to non-existent over the next couple of weeks. Things will be back to normal around here the week of July 9.
In the meantime, I leave you with this lengthy piece by Arthur Lubow in today's Sunday Times Magazine about one of the central fronts in the cultural patrimony wars: the government of Peru's demand that Yale University return thousands of objects that were taken from Machu Picchu in the early nineteen hundreds.
In the meantime, I leave you with this lengthy piece by Arthur Lubow in today's Sunday Times Magazine about one of the central fronts in the cultural patrimony wars: the government of Peru's demand that Yale University return thousands of objects that were taken from Machu Picchu in the early nineteen hundreds.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Barnes Offer Rejected
As expected, the Barnes Foundation has turned down the last gasp offer by Montgomery County to keep it from moving. The chairman of the Barnes "rejected the proposal Monday in a letter to a lawyer representing the county, saying the foundation had made binding commitments to Philadelphia to relocate .... He added that the 'decision is irreversible.'" The lawyer for the county "vowed he would continue the fight in Montgomery County Orphans' Court." The Philadelphia Inquirer has the story here. More here.
Another Gee's Bend Lawsuit
Randy Kennedy reports in this morning's New York Times that a third lawsuit has been filed involving the Gee's Bend quilters: "The great-granddaughter of a woman who belonged to a group of quiltmakers in Gee’s Bend, Ala., whose work has become celebrated in the art world, has filed suit against three Atlanta art dealers claiming that they have illegally taken two century-old quilts made by her great-grandmother. The woman, Lucinda Pettway Franklin, contends that one of the dealers, Matt Arnett, asked two years ago to borrow the quilts to have them examined and photographed for a book. But the quilts, along with another made by her mother and an aunt, have not been returned, despite requests, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday in Alabama."
Earlier post on the previous two suits here.
Earlier post on the previous two suits here.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
"The opinion of the court provides no benefits for Fisk"
In the Nashville Scene, Christine Kreyling has more on the recent setback for Fisk University in its deaccessioning lawsuit against the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. She calls it a "stunning, if not entirely unexpected, legal defeat":
"Fisk now finds itself in a legal straitjacket. The university can’t sell the paintings and is still facing a July trial—more legal bills—to answer the claim made by the museum that the school has violated the conditions of O’Keeffe’s gift, in particular to exhibit the collection intact. The collection has been in storage at the Frist Center since 2005, when the university determined that its gallery didn’t provide proper security or environmental controls. While the remedy the museum seeks is unspecified in the legal documents, the threat of reversion of the collection back to the museum, as the successor to O’Keeffe’s estate, looms. Fisk could lose the art ...."
If Fisk does lose the art, the Tennessee Attorney General's decision to reverse course and withdraw his approval of the settlement the parties had reached will turn out to have been a colossal blunder. Under the proposed settlement, Fisk would have ended up with more than $20 million in cash and ownership of 99 of the 101 pieces in the Stieglitz Collection. Now it seems possible the university (and the State of Tennessee) could end up with nothing at all.
"Fisk now finds itself in a legal straitjacket. The university can’t sell the paintings and is still facing a July trial—more legal bills—to answer the claim made by the museum that the school has violated the conditions of O’Keeffe’s gift, in particular to exhibit the collection intact. The collection has been in storage at the Frist Center since 2005, when the university determined that its gallery didn’t provide proper security or environmental controls. While the remedy the museum seeks is unspecified in the legal documents, the threat of reversion of the collection back to the museum, as the successor to O’Keeffe’s estate, looms. Fisk could lose the art ...."
If Fisk does lose the art, the Tennessee Attorney General's decision to reverse course and withdraw his approval of the settlement the parties had reached will turn out to have been a colossal blunder. Under the proposed settlement, Fisk would have ended up with more than $20 million in cash and ownership of 99 of the 101 pieces in the Stieglitz Collection. Now it seems possible the university (and the State of Tennessee) could end up with nothing at all.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
"A high-profile mea culpa" (UPDATED)
Robin Pogrebin has a story in today's New York Times on the 55-page report issued yesterday by the Smithsonian's new governance committee.
Tyler Green summarizes: "It's official: The Smithsonian is pathetically mismanaged." He also offers some thoughts on what's next.
For background, see here.
UPDATE: A second, "scathing" report, this one focusing on former chief executive Lawrence Small, issued today. Story here.
Tyler Green summarizes: "It's official: The Smithsonian is pathetically mismanaged." He also offers some thoughts on what's next.
For background, see here.
UPDATE: A second, "scathing" report, this one focusing on former chief executive Lawrence Small, issued today. Story here.
A Defense of Fisk
The New York Sun editorial board comes to the defense of Fisk University in its deaccessioning battle with the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation:
"It strikes us that Fisk is being a model of responsibility here. Only about 30 persons a day were going to see the paintings, before they were [recently] put into storage. Fisk hasn't moved to break up its O'Keeffe holdings. It is proposing to sell but two of the 105 paintings and photographs. It proposes using the sale to increase its endowment and improving its departments of math and science."
Why has the Sun taken an interest in the matter?
"The case catches our eye because the question of de-accessioning comes up now and again in New York, most recently in the dispute over Kindred Spirits. That was the painting by Asher Durand that was sold by the New York Public Library to Alice Walton. The sale created an enormous hubbub in the pages of the New York Times, which reckoned it, rather than the trustees of the Library, should decide what, if any, paintings the library ought to be permitted to sell and to whom they ought to be able to sell them and at what price."
"It strikes us that Fisk is being a model of responsibility here. Only about 30 persons a day were going to see the paintings, before they were [recently] put into storage. Fisk hasn't moved to break up its O'Keeffe holdings. It is proposing to sell but two of the 105 paintings and photographs. It proposes using the sale to increase its endowment and improving its departments of math and science."
Why has the Sun taken an interest in the matter?
"The case catches our eye because the question of de-accessioning comes up now and again in New York, most recently in the dispute over Kindred Spirits. That was the painting by Asher Durand that was sold by the New York Public Library to Alice Walton. The sale created an enormous hubbub in the pages of the New York Times, which reckoned it, rather than the trustees of the Library, should decide what, if any, paintings the library ought to be permitted to sell and to whom they ought to be able to sell them and at what price."
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Gee's Bend Lawsuit
Two of the Gee's Bend quilters "have sued the Atlanta art dealers who handled their work, claiming that the men and their company exploited the quilters' naivete about the art world and product licensing. The art dealers failed to properly compensate the women and the community for their work, the lawsuits say." More from the Houston Chronicle here. The Whitney Museum did a show on the quilts in 2003. Here's one review.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
The Empire Strikes Back
In a post I quoted here, about the recent Marilyn Monroe decision (holding that her publicity rights had not survived her death), Anthony Falzone, director of Stanford's Fair Use Project, said, "Millions of licensing revenue stands to disappear under this decision. The beneficiaries of this windfall will not let that money go without a fight. So I expect to hear a lot more about this issue."
Well, that didn't take long. Legislation has been introduced in New York granting post-mortem publicity rights, including retroactively to anyone who died after 1938. The proposed bill is here. The New York Daily News has the story here. The AP story is here.
One of the co-sponsors of the bill is quoted here as saying, "The fact that unscrupulous quick buck artists can profiteer on a loophole in our law by selling insulting and degrading images of those who are deceased is shameful." It's hard to see what "loophole" he's referring to. The statute has always applied, unambiguosly, to "living persons" only. The Monroe decision was indeed a bombshell, but it was entirely consistent with existing New York law. Apparently something in the decision has led some lawmakers to conclude that Indiana had it right all along.
Well, that didn't take long. Legislation has been introduced in New York granting post-mortem publicity rights, including retroactively to anyone who died after 1938. The proposed bill is here. The New York Daily News has the story here. The AP story is here.
One of the co-sponsors of the bill is quoted here as saying, "The fact that unscrupulous quick buck artists can profiteer on a loophole in our law by selling insulting and degrading images of those who are deceased is shameful." It's hard to see what "loophole" he's referring to. The statute has always applied, unambiguosly, to "living persons" only. The Monroe decision was indeed a bombshell, but it was entirely consistent with existing New York law. Apparently something in the decision has led some lawmakers to conclude that Indiana had it right all along.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Barnes Bonds Bid
Randy Kennedy has a brief piece (fifth item) in today's New York Times on the latest bid to prevent the Barnes from moving, which I mentioned earlier this week: "Montgomery County proposed buying the foundation’s buildings and land for $50 million or more, using money that would be raised through bonds. Under the plan, interest from the money could then be used by the Barnes both to pay the bonds’ debt service and to build its endowment, allowing the art to stay put. ... A spokesman for the Barnes said that the foundation had only recently received the proposal and was not yet prepared to comment."
"I.R.S. Seeks More Charity Transparency"
The New York Times reports this morning that the IRS has "proposed a vast overhaul of the main tax form for charities, an effort to make it easier for the IRS and the public to tell how much nonprofit groups are paying their executives and how much of their money goes toward fund-raising."
More information on the redesigned form, Form 990, at the IRS website here. The deadline for comments is Sept. 14. The IRS plans to have the new form in place "in time for charities to use it to report for 2008."
More information on the redesigned form, Form 990, at the IRS website here. The deadline for comments is Sept. 14. The IRS plans to have the new form in place "in time for charities to use it to report for 2008."
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Fisk Decision
A Tennessee court has ruled that Fisk University cannot sell either of the two paintings it's been trying to sell from its O'Keeffe Collection. According to an article in today's Nashville Tennessean,
"Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle agreed with the [position of the O'Keeffe museum], noting in an 18-page order that O'Keeffe donated the collection expressly for educational purposes, to be used to help Fisk students in the study of art. ... '[T]he only conclusion a reasonable person can reach,' Lyle wrote, 'is that it is the Collection as a whole, not the individual artworks, which accomplishes the educational purpose specified at the time of the donation and that the donation was not given to Fisk to use as a source of revenue…. Dividing the Collection destroys the identity and effect and the charitable purpose (of O'Keeffe's gift). Similarly selling the entire Collection converts it into a source of revenue for the University and destroys the art educational purpose.'"
The article notes that "this latest development does not end the case, which is still set for trial on July 16." I haven't seen a copy of the opinion, but it's not clear what's left to be decided at a trial. In the meantime, we can take a preliminary look at the winners and losers.
The "radical conservative" anti-deaccessionists should be happy. Fisk can't sell off any part of the collection.
Presumably the O'Keeffe Museum is happy. They brought the lawsuit to prevent the sale, and it sounds like the court handed them a complete victory.
Fisk is the big loser. They wanted to sell the two paintings and then, when the O'Keeffe Museum intervened to block the sale, they agreed to a settlement that would have yielded perhaps $25 million or more, which they apparently desperately need, only to have the Tennessee Attorney General kill the deal.
The Attorney General is a trickier case. Initially, he approved the settlement between Fisk and the museum, but later, when it became clear what a huge discount the museum would be getting on the purchase of one of the two paintings, he withdrew his approval. His most recent statement of his position was that he wanted to "to keep this collection intact," which this decision seems to do. So let's count him a winner too (which I guess means that everybody wins . . . except the university).
Incidentally, this outcome reinforces a point I made a couple months ago in response to those who were arguing that the price the museum had agreed to pay under the settlement was "too low," that, if it truly wanted the painting, "it should be ready to pay what it's worth." As I pointed out at the time, this line of argument ignored the fact that the museum apparently had -- and was agreeing to give up as part of the deal -- a very strong legal position that the sale shouldn't happen at all. As I said then, "supporters of the university may come to regret the decision to leave twenty million on the table just because it wasn't forty."
"Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle agreed with the [position of the O'Keeffe museum], noting in an 18-page order that O'Keeffe donated the collection expressly for educational purposes, to be used to help Fisk students in the study of art. ... '[T]he only conclusion a reasonable person can reach,' Lyle wrote, 'is that it is the Collection as a whole, not the individual artworks, which accomplishes the educational purpose specified at the time of the donation and that the donation was not given to Fisk to use as a source of revenue…. Dividing the Collection destroys the identity and effect and the charitable purpose (of O'Keeffe's gift). Similarly selling the entire Collection converts it into a source of revenue for the University and destroys the art educational purpose.'"
The article notes that "this latest development does not end the case, which is still set for trial on July 16." I haven't seen a copy of the opinion, but it's not clear what's left to be decided at a trial. In the meantime, we can take a preliminary look at the winners and losers.
The "radical conservative" anti-deaccessionists should be happy. Fisk can't sell off any part of the collection.
Presumably the O'Keeffe Museum is happy. They brought the lawsuit to prevent the sale, and it sounds like the court handed them a complete victory.
Fisk is the big loser. They wanted to sell the two paintings and then, when the O'Keeffe Museum intervened to block the sale, they agreed to a settlement that would have yielded perhaps $25 million or more, which they apparently desperately need, only to have the Tennessee Attorney General kill the deal.
The Attorney General is a trickier case. Initially, he approved the settlement between Fisk and the museum, but later, when it became clear what a huge discount the museum would be getting on the purchase of one of the two paintings, he withdrew his approval. His most recent statement of his position was that he wanted to "to keep this collection intact," which this decision seems to do. So let's count him a winner too (which I guess means that everybody wins . . . except the university).
Incidentally, this outcome reinforces a point I made a couple months ago in response to those who were arguing that the price the museum had agreed to pay under the settlement was "too low," that, if it truly wanted the painting, "it should be ready to pay what it's worth." As I pointed out at the time, this line of argument ignored the fact that the museum apparently had -- and was agreeing to give up as part of the deal -- a very strong legal position that the sale shouldn't happen at all. As I said then, "supporters of the university may come to regret the decision to leave twenty million on the table just because it wasn't forty."
Barnes Maneuvering
A couple of last gasp moves to try to keep the Barnes Foundation from moving to Philadelphia.
First, Montgomery County made a $50 million plus bid to buy the Barnes property, which it would then lease back to the foundation. Details here.
Second, the Friends of the Barnes Foundation is trying to block the move by getting the museum listed as a historic landmark. See here.
It may all be too little too late:
"The Barnes Foundation has already received court approval for the move. With help from three foundations -- the Pew Charitable Trusts, Annenberg Foundation and Lenfest Foundation -- over $150 million has been raised for the new site, which would be on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Franklin Institute and Rodin Museum, among other institutions. The city of Philadelphia set aside a parcel now occupied by a city-owned youth detention center."
First, Montgomery County made a $50 million plus bid to buy the Barnes property, which it would then lease back to the foundation. Details here.
Second, the Friends of the Barnes Foundation is trying to block the move by getting the museum listed as a historic landmark. See here.
It may all be too little too late:
"The Barnes Foundation has already received court approval for the move. With help from three foundations -- the Pew Charitable Trusts, Annenberg Foundation and Lenfest Foundation -- over $150 million has been raised for the new site, which would be on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Franklin Institute and Rodin Museum, among other institutions. The city of Philadelphia set aside a parcel now occupied by a city-owned youth detention center."
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
"Hard times dictate hard choices"
Roanoke Times columnist Joe Kennedy had a piece yesterday on the latest front in the deaccession wars -- the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, which recently announced that it was considering selling off part of its collection. Here's how he tells it:
"There is a story behind the passions, and it is not a pretty one. Attempting to preserve its mission as a college for women, the school spent too much of its endowment annually, in part by granting too many tuition discounts, [interim president, Virginia Hill] Worden said. The goal was to attract quality female students and continue operating without making cuts that might affect its academic programs. The problem, Worden said, is that the college fought the good fight for too long. It stayed one-sex while many others went coed. As a result, 'We are grappling with issues in the marketplace. ....' On July 1, the school's name will become Randolph College. In September, it will admit its first male students -- 57 of them. Those two changes hurt and angered many alumnae and others. The uproar, including opponents' charges of financial malfeasance, prompted the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to include a financial review in a 2006 review of two new graduate programs. The review uncovered 'absolutely no evidence' of financial malfeasance, Worden said, but it found a spending rate that was too high and an operating deficit of $4.5 million last year, plus other shortcomings. ... The college was placed on warning. It has two years to improve the picture or face probation or possibly even lose its accreditation. 'We now have to make some tough decisions,' the president said. Auction houses and other entities have visited the Maier to make appraisals. The attorney general's office has been kept abreast of developments."
Speaking of the attorney general, Lee Rosenbaum got a statement from his office:
"Traditionally, the role of this office in such situations is limited. In Virginia the Office of the Attorney General has two basic functions when it comes to charitable trusts. We ensure that they are handled legally, and that any proceeds from properly conducted transactions remain in the Commonwealth. This is quite different from the role that attorneys general in a small number of other states (New York, for example) play in charitable trusts, which is far more active."
"There is a story behind the passions, and it is not a pretty one. Attempting to preserve its mission as a college for women, the school spent too much of its endowment annually, in part by granting too many tuition discounts, [interim president, Virginia Hill] Worden said. The goal was to attract quality female students and continue operating without making cuts that might affect its academic programs. The problem, Worden said, is that the college fought the good fight for too long. It stayed one-sex while many others went coed. As a result, 'We are grappling with issues in the marketplace. ....' On July 1, the school's name will become Randolph College. In September, it will admit its first male students -- 57 of them. Those two changes hurt and angered many alumnae and others. The uproar, including opponents' charges of financial malfeasance, prompted the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to include a financial review in a 2006 review of two new graduate programs. The review uncovered 'absolutely no evidence' of financial malfeasance, Worden said, but it found a spending rate that was too high and an operating deficit of $4.5 million last year, plus other shortcomings. ... The college was placed on warning. It has two years to improve the picture or face probation or possibly even lose its accreditation. 'We now have to make some tough decisions,' the president said. Auction houses and other entities have visited the Maier to make appraisals. The attorney general's office has been kept abreast of developments."
Speaking of the attorney general, Lee Rosenbaum got a statement from his office:
"Traditionally, the role of this office in such situations is limited. In Virginia the Office of the Attorney General has two basic functions when it comes to charitable trusts. We ensure that they are handled legally, and that any proceeds from properly conducted transactions remain in the Commonwealth. This is quite different from the role that attorneys general in a small number of other states (New York, for example) play in charitable trusts, which is far more active."
Cathedral Copyright
The New York Times today mentions (second item) that "the Church of England, accusing Sony of 'virtual desecration,' called on the company yesterday to apologize and withdraw a PlayStation computer game that depicts a shootout in the nave of Manchester Cathedral." Much more here, from a U.K. legal perspective. Professor Patry provides the U.S. perspective: "Under U.S. law (and it should be noted, the game was made in the U.S.), the cathedral wouldn't be protected at all since it was constructed before 1990." But even if were covered, Sony would probably be safe under Section 120(a) of the Copyright Act:
"(a) Pictorial Representations Permitted. — The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place."
"(a) Pictorial Representations Permitted. — The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place."
Monday, June 11, 2007
Final Tally
With the full series of auctions now complete, the final take for the Albright-Knox from its recent deaccessioning comes to around $67 million:
"Prior to the auctions, the Albright's endowment was just under $60 million with both restricted and unrestricted funds. Funds restricted for purchase of works of art was between $22 million and $23 million -- a figure that now grows to nearly $90 million with the proceeds of the auctions. The gallery is restricted to 5 percent of a rolling three-year average of interest income for purchase of new art."
Lee Rosenbaum's reaction: "deplorable."
"Prior to the auctions, the Albright's endowment was just under $60 million with both restricted and unrestricted funds. Funds restricted for purchase of works of art was between $22 million and $23 million -- a figure that now grows to nearly $90 million with the proceeds of the auctions. The gallery is restricted to 5 percent of a rolling three-year average of interest income for purchase of new art."
Lee Rosenbaum's reaction: "deplorable."
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Raiders of the Lost Art
A few months ago I posted about a Norman Rockwell painting that turned up in Stephen Spielberg's collection 30 years after it was stolen from a St. Louis gallery. Now comes news that not one, but two lawsuits have followed: (1) Jack Solomon, the owner of the gallery from which the painting was stolen in 1973, has sued both Spielberg and the FBI in federal court in Nevada, and (2) Judy Goffman Cutler, a Rhode Island dealer who sold the painting to Spielberg in 1989, has filed a separate federal suit in New York against Solomon and the Art Loss Register Inc., which has apparently been helping him in his efforts to recover the painting. The Wall Street Journal had the story a few weeks ago, and last week the St. Louis Riverfront Times had much more. The Riverfront Times story is long and wild (the subhead is: "Steven Spielberg's stolen painting, a St. Louis art thief, and a plot to kill Martin Luther King. It could make a helluva movie"), but it seems to me that very little of it sheds much light on the legal claims at issue. Some very general thoughts on those claims, recognizing that there may well be much more to the story than we have so far been told:
1. The basic rule at the heart of the case -- that "you can't get good title from a thief" -- seems to favor Solomon, from whom the work was stolen in 1973. But nothing is ever that simple, and there were at least two complicating factors that jumped out at me from the article.
2. The first was Goffman Cutler's claim that Solomon's insurer paid him $25,000 for the artwork following the theft. If this is true (the Riverfront Times story also reports it as a fact), it may well be that Solomon gave up the right to make a claim (presumably the insurance company would have acquired the right when it paid Solomon's insurance claim).
3. The other issue is timing: It's not clear which state's law will apply here, but many jurisdictions have some variant of the rule that the statute of limitations starts to run when a claimant reasonably should have discovered the identity of the "wrongful" possessor of the work. The Riverfront Times talks to Mary Ellen Shortland, who was the assistant director of the gallery at the time of the theft. Sixteen years later, "she was flipping through the July/August 1989 edition of the trade magazine Art & Auction when she came across an advertisement announcing the sale of [the painting]." She says she tried to call Solomon "but was unable to get through." Her inquiries "were later chronicled by former Riverfront Times reporter Wm. Stage in the October 11, 1989, issue of [the] paper. Stage wrote that he also attempted to get in touch with Solomon to no avail." Does all of that add up to Solomon reasonably should have discovered the painting had been located in 1989?
I guess we'll soon find out.
1. The basic rule at the heart of the case -- that "you can't get good title from a thief" -- seems to favor Solomon, from whom the work was stolen in 1973. But nothing is ever that simple, and there were at least two complicating factors that jumped out at me from the article.
2. The first was Goffman Cutler's claim that Solomon's insurer paid him $25,000 for the artwork following the theft. If this is true (the Riverfront Times story also reports it as a fact), it may well be that Solomon gave up the right to make a claim (presumably the insurance company would have acquired the right when it paid Solomon's insurance claim).
3. The other issue is timing: It's not clear which state's law will apply here, but many jurisdictions have some variant of the rule that the statute of limitations starts to run when a claimant reasonably should have discovered the identity of the "wrongful" possessor of the work. The Riverfront Times talks to Mary Ellen Shortland, who was the assistant director of the gallery at the time of the theft. Sixteen years later, "she was flipping through the July/August 1989 edition of the trade magazine Art & Auction when she came across an advertisement announcing the sale of [the painting]." She says she tried to call Solomon "but was unable to get through." Her inquiries "were later chronicled by former Riverfront Times reporter Wm. Stage in the October 11, 1989, issue of [the] paper. Stage wrote that he also attempted to get in touch with Solomon to no avail." Does all of that add up to Solomon reasonably should have discovered the painting had been located in 1989?
I guess we'll soon find out.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Barnes Legal Strategy Taking Shape
So remember when the Montgomery County Commissioners invited "proposals from law firms to explore legal strategies and options" to keep the Barnes from moving? As I mentioned last week, Bryn Mawr lawyer Mark Schwartz got the job, and today we learn what his strategy will be:
"Schwartz said he would file a petition in the next few weeks asking Judge Stanley Ott to review his decision authorizing the Barnes' relocation against the directives of its deceased founder, Albert C. Barnes. The appeal will be based on 'new information' showing that politicians, private interests and the Barnes' board of directors worked together to undermine Barnes' wishes as outlined in the trust he left behind, Schwartz said."
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, not only was Schwartz's the winning proposal -- it was the only proposal, which probably is the best indication yet of what a longshot this is.
"Schwartz said he would file a petition in the next few weeks asking Judge Stanley Ott to review his decision authorizing the Barnes' relocation against the directives of its deceased founder, Albert C. Barnes. The appeal will be based on 'new information' showing that politicians, private interests and the Barnes' board of directors worked together to undermine Barnes' wishes as outlined in the trust he left behind, Schwartz said."
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, not only was Schwartz's the winning proposal -- it was the only proposal, which probably is the best indication yet of what a longshot this is.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Fort Knox
The controversial Albright-Knox deaccessioning continued today, with some result:
"An important, 2,000-year-old Roman bronze of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, brought $28.6 million this afternoon at Sotheby's in New York, becoming both the most expensive antiquity and piece of sculpture from any period to sell at auction.
...
"Albright-Knox has offered 207 artworks and objects to be sold in a series of auctions at Sotheby's this spring. Today's sale brings the Albright-Knox total to $72.8 million. ...
"The Albright-Knox lots at today's auction, which all sold, tallied $40.6 million, far exceeding their $9.3 million high estimate. ... Dealers said that pristine ownership history made the Albright-Knox works even more desirable, especially at a time when the antiquities field has been mired in legal battles over artworks with murky histories."
Said Tom Freudenheim, who led the unsuccessful campaign to block the sales (see here): "Good for the museum that they are going to end up with a zillion dollars to spend on overpriced art.''
More from the Buffalo News here.
"An important, 2,000-year-old Roman bronze of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, brought $28.6 million this afternoon at Sotheby's in New York, becoming both the most expensive antiquity and piece of sculpture from any period to sell at auction.
...
"Albright-Knox has offered 207 artworks and objects to be sold in a series of auctions at Sotheby's this spring. Today's sale brings the Albright-Knox total to $72.8 million. ...
"The Albright-Knox lots at today's auction, which all sold, tallied $40.6 million, far exceeding their $9.3 million high estimate. ... Dealers said that pristine ownership history made the Albright-Knox works even more desirable, especially at a time when the antiquities field has been mired in legal battles over artworks with murky histories."
Said Tom Freudenheim, who led the unsuccessful campaign to block the sales (see here): "Good for the museum that they are going to end up with a zillion dollars to spend on overpriced art.''
More from the Buffalo News here.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Settlement in the Brooklyn College Lawsuit (UPDATED)
Tomorrow's New York Sun will have this report:
"The city yesterday [promised] to pay $750 to each of the 18 art students and a professor who had participated in an exhibit the city closed last year at the Brooklyn War Memorial ... The payments and an apology settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought by the students, charging city officials with censorship. The exhibit, put on by master's degree candidates at Brooklyn College, included a sculpture of a penis and a separate piece containing a written narrative describing a sexual encounter with a man named Dick Cheney. One day after the display opened in May 2006, the Brooklyn parks commissioner ... locked the doors to the War Memorial, which Brooklyn College students had used as an exhibit space."
The Sun's lede is that the city "backed down," though a less than $15,000 settlement doesn't strike me as much of a capitulation. (On the other hand, there may be something to the students' lawyer's point that the apology might serve to "create a government consciousness not to do this again.") The article also sees the resolution as evidence that "the Bloomberg administration is pursuing a more conciliatory path when accused of censorship than had the [Giuliani] administration," but, as noted in this post from last year, Mayor Bloomberg strongly defended the city's actions at the time: "Nobody's suggesting that anybody shouldn't be allowed to exhibit art. The issue here is this is not a museum. This is a war memorial. There has been an understanding ever since art was put here that the art would be appropriate for families and respectful of and appropriate for a war memorial and this time it was not."
UPDATE: The New York Times has a brief piece this morning. One thing I missed last night is that the city also agreed to pay $42,500 in legal fees to the students' lawyers, so, at $57,000, the settlement starts to look a little more capitulatory. There's also an editorial in today's Sun which begins: "It's hard to recall a more abject show of weakness in city government in recent years than the decision of the Bloomberg administration to apologize for closing an 'art' exhibit of pornographicalistic political commentary against our wartime leaders that Brooklyn College students had mounted inside the city's war memorial in Cadman Plaza park."
"The city yesterday [promised] to pay $750 to each of the 18 art students and a professor who had participated in an exhibit the city closed last year at the Brooklyn War Memorial ... The payments and an apology settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought by the students, charging city officials with censorship. The exhibit, put on by master's degree candidates at Brooklyn College, included a sculpture of a penis and a separate piece containing a written narrative describing a sexual encounter with a man named Dick Cheney. One day after the display opened in May 2006, the Brooklyn parks commissioner ... locked the doors to the War Memorial, which Brooklyn College students had used as an exhibit space."
The Sun's lede is that the city "backed down," though a less than $15,000 settlement doesn't strike me as much of a capitulation. (On the other hand, there may be something to the students' lawyer's point that the apology might serve to "create a government consciousness not to do this again.") The article also sees the resolution as evidence that "the Bloomberg administration is pursuing a more conciliatory path when accused of censorship than had the [Giuliani] administration," but, as noted in this post from last year, Mayor Bloomberg strongly defended the city's actions at the time: "Nobody's suggesting that anybody shouldn't be allowed to exhibit art. The issue here is this is not a museum. This is a war memorial. There has been an understanding ever since art was put here that the art would be appropriate for families and respectful of and appropriate for a war memorial and this time it was not."
UPDATE: The New York Times has a brief piece this morning. One thing I missed last night is that the city also agreed to pay $42,500 in legal fees to the students' lawyers, so, at $57,000, the settlement starts to look a little more capitulatory. There's also an editorial in today's Sun which begins: "It's hard to recall a more abject show of weakness in city government in recent years than the decision of the Bloomberg administration to apologize for closing an 'art' exhibit of pornographicalistic political commentary against our wartime leaders that Brooklyn College students had mounted inside the city's war memorial in Cadman Plaza park."
"21st century I.P. madness"
Tim Cavanaugh, web editor of The Los Angeles Times' editorial page, had an opinion piece yesterday on Carol Shloss's lawsuit against the Joyce estate (which I posted about, most recently, here). He says the case "sheds light on an ironic, and maybe inevitable, trend in intellectual property: As copyright becomes harder to defend, many copyright holders are becoming less realistic about the limitations of their ownership."
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Lost
An interesting Second Circuit decision last week involving the valuation of lost photographs. Photojournalist Arthur Grace's licensing agent, Sygma, lost more than 40,000 of his images. The question in the case was how to value the loss. The District Court decision, by Judge Chin, after rejecting "the industry's liquidated damages standard of $1,500 per lost transparency" because it would have led to the "absurd result" of a $60 million verdict, awarded Grace a total $472,000, composed primarily of $100 per image for 4,000 images (what Chin called "selects") and $1 an image for the other 36,000. The Second Circuit wasn't pleased with that methodology and so vacated the award and remanded for a new assessment of damages, "suggest[ing]" a methodology that focuses more on the present value of the future lost earnings from the missing photos. The decision is here. David Walker points out that the digital revolution may mean that this decision will end up being of largely historical interest.
"Hey Louie, I know where your painting is. Get a lawyer"
Long (and I mean long) story in the Hartford Courant this weekend about a painting bought for $3 at a tag sale that turned out, 30 years later, to be a John Singer Sargent worth more than $6 million. Mental illness, lawsuits, use of the word "stugots," it's all there. The Cliff Notes version is here. You can see the painting here.
ARIS Again
Yet another article on ARIS Corp. and its efforts to market title insurance for art -- this one in the Wall Street Journal Online -- even though they still haven't written a single policy ("though some major candidates are pending"!). Previous appearances by ARIS here, here, and here. For the reasons described here, I remain skeptical.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Graffiti Art Copyright Dispute
The New York Times today reports on a dispute between a number of graffiti artists and a photographer who put out a book that depicted their work without permission. The publisher of the book, University Press of Mississippi, has removed the book from its catalog.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Shloss Wins (Again)
Back in April, I mentioned that, after settling her lawsuit against the James Joyce Estate, Stanford Professor Carol Shloss had moved for an order requiring the Estate to pay her attorneys' fees. Today that motion was granted. The amount of the fees hasn't yet been set, but Anthony Falzone of Stanford's Fair Use Project, which represents Shloss in the lawsuit, says "we hope this demonstrates that inadequate respect for fair use's critical role in scholarly inquiry and free expression can have substantial and serious consequences." You can read the court's order here.
More Splasher
A lengthy piece in New York magazine this week about the Splasher, mentioned earlier here. Here's the set-up:
"Here at the beginning, then, why don’t we just lay out the mystery, the so-called facts, as plain as we can make them. In the fall, some anonymous figure started vandalizing the city’s most celebrated vandalism—by which I mean not traditional seventies-style spray-paint graffiti but a relatively new, gentrified outgrowth of that tradition that’s come to be called 'street art': multimedia works of astonishing polish and complexity and beauty, often created by artists without a 'street' bone in their bodies. Many went to art school and have grown-up jobs and lucrative gallery careers and are terrified of the cops and traditional graffiti crews. Over the past ten years, as street art has become big business—upscale art shows in London and Tokyo, advertising contracts, waves of positive media coverage, blogfuls of groupies—it’s generated exactly the kind of internal backlash you’d expect in a subculture conceived of as guerrilla warfare against consumer culture. The Splasher epitomizes this backlash. In the middle of the night, about six months ago, this vandalism vandal started hitting the scene’s most acclaimed masterpieces, works that might have gone for $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 in a gallery, with big sloppy splashes of housepaint—teal, white, purple, yellow, electric blue. Beneath the splash he—or she, or they, or (who knows?) us—would leave a manifesto ranting, in Marxist jargon, about commodification and fetishization and the author’s intention of 'euthanizing your bourgeois fad.' From November to March, the splashes arrived in bursts, busy weeks interspersed with long fallow periods. By the end of the campaign, observers counted nearly a hundred of them."
The story does note the "blinding irony" that "no matter how artful the best street art inarguably is, it’s still illegal—so the Splasher was only vandalizing vandalism." You can see some examples of the Splasher's work alongside the article.
"Here at the beginning, then, why don’t we just lay out the mystery, the so-called facts, as plain as we can make them. In the fall, some anonymous figure started vandalizing the city’s most celebrated vandalism—by which I mean not traditional seventies-style spray-paint graffiti but a relatively new, gentrified outgrowth of that tradition that’s come to be called 'street art': multimedia works of astonishing polish and complexity and beauty, often created by artists without a 'street' bone in their bodies. Many went to art school and have grown-up jobs and lucrative gallery careers and are terrified of the cops and traditional graffiti crews. Over the past ten years, as street art has become big business—upscale art shows in London and Tokyo, advertising contracts, waves of positive media coverage, blogfuls of groupies—it’s generated exactly the kind of internal backlash you’d expect in a subculture conceived of as guerrilla warfare against consumer culture. The Splasher epitomizes this backlash. In the middle of the night, about six months ago, this vandalism vandal started hitting the scene’s most acclaimed masterpieces, works that might have gone for $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 in a gallery, with big sloppy splashes of housepaint—teal, white, purple, yellow, electric blue. Beneath the splash he—or she, or they, or (who knows?) us—would leave a manifesto ranting, in Marxist jargon, about commodification and fetishization and the author’s intention of 'euthanizing your bourgeois fad.' From November to March, the splashes arrived in bursts, busy weeks interspersed with long fallow periods. By the end of the campaign, observers counted nearly a hundred of them."
The story does note the "blinding irony" that "no matter how artful the best street art inarguably is, it’s still illegal—so the Splasher was only vandalizing vandalism." You can see some examples of the Splasher's work alongside the article.
Varian on Orphan Works
Hal Varian has a piece in today's New York Times on the issue of orphan works, discussed earlier here. It begins:
"Here’s a quiz question for authors: To copyright a written work in the United States, you must (a) register it with the Copyright Office; (b) insert a notice that says 'Copyright © 2007'; (c) insert a notice that says 'All rights reserved.' Answer: none of the above. Under current law, a work is automatically copyrighted the moment it is 'fixed in tangible form.'"
He goes on to point out that "since there is no requirement to register a work ..., the legal owner of a work can be difficult to find, particularly when the work is more than a few decades old," and summarizes the current proposed legislation to address the issue:
"Under [the proposed legislation], if you conducted a 'diligent search' to locate a rights holder and still failed to find the owner, you would be off the hook. You could then incorporate the work in question into your own work, as long as you provided proper attribution. If the legitimate rights holder was subsequently found, he or she could not require that your work be withdrawn from circulation, but could collect 'reasonable compensation' for use."
He notes that the proposal is "still on the back burner in Congress," but says it is "certainly a step in the right direction" and "hope[s] that it soon gets the attention it deserves." He also mentions an alternative proposal being pushed by Stanford lawprof Larry Lessig, "a system where authors receive an automatic copyright when they create new works, but they must register their copyright within 14 years to retain it past the initial period."
"Here’s a quiz question for authors: To copyright a written work in the United States, you must (a) register it with the Copyright Office; (b) insert a notice that says 'Copyright © 2007'; (c) insert a notice that says 'All rights reserved.' Answer: none of the above. Under current law, a work is automatically copyrighted the moment it is 'fixed in tangible form.'"
He goes on to point out that "since there is no requirement to register a work ..., the legal owner of a work can be difficult to find, particularly when the work is more than a few decades old," and summarizes the current proposed legislation to address the issue:
"Under [the proposed legislation], if you conducted a 'diligent search' to locate a rights holder and still failed to find the owner, you would be off the hook. You could then incorporate the work in question into your own work, as long as you provided proper attribution. If the legitimate rights holder was subsequently found, he or she could not require that your work be withdrawn from circulation, but could collect 'reasonable compensation' for use."
He notes that the proposal is "still on the back burner in Congress," but says it is "certainly a step in the right direction" and "hope[s] that it soon gets the attention it deserves." He also mentions an alternative proposal being pushed by Stanford lawprof Larry Lessig, "a system where authors receive an automatic copyright when they create new works, but they must register their copyright within 14 years to retain it past the initial period."
Uphill Climb
Lee Rosenbaum reports that the Montgomery County Commissioners have hired a lawyer, Mark Schwartz of Bryn Mawr, to try a last ditch effort to stop the Barnes from moving to Philadelphia. (This is the result of the "SOS" resolution I mentioned here.) As Lee says, Schwartz "faces a formidable challenge: A court case has already been decided, allowing the move, and Philadelphia's movers and shakers are solidly behind it."
To sell or not to sell?
The Chicago Tribune takes a tour through all the recent deaccessioning battles, including of course Thomas Jefferson University's Eakins sale and the Albright-Knox's ongoing series of auction sales. It also sheds a bit of light on the Fisk University-O'Keeffe dispute. I've wondered in the past just what the Tennessee AG is seeking to accomplish there: "Is it that the works not be sold at all, which would presumably make the 'radical conservatives' happy? Or is it that they be sold for a price higher than the one Fisk originally agreed to (on the basis of an appraisal that was two years old at the time), which would presumably make Yale's Jock Reynolds happy but might also result in the O'Keeffe painting not going to the publicly accessible O'Keeffe museum but rather to some private collection somewhere?" Well, the answer now seems to be the former: "My goal is, hopefully, to keep this collection intact. This is a collection that I think any university, any city, would be proud to have as part of its cultural offering." That, of course, is precisely the position the O'Keeffe Museum was taking in the lawsuit -- at least until it agreed to the settlement by which it would acquire the O'Keeffe painting Fisk wanted to sell, at a bargain basement price, in exchange for dropping its objection to the university putting another painting from the collection, "Painting No. 3" by Marsden Hartley, on the open market. Now, the AG initially approved that settlement, so the question I still have is what happened afterward that convinced him the collection should be kept intact, even if it means Fisk is stuck with the kind of financial troubles that led it to want to sell the two works in the first place? Was the collection not worth keeping intact if the price the museum was paying for it under the settlement was near its current fair market value? Did the fact that the museum was getting a very healthy discount somehow awaken the AG to the notion that any university would be proud to have the Stieglitz collection as part of its cultural offering?
And here's a related story about another way Fisk might be able to solve its financial woes:
"Financially troubled Fisk University, plagued for years by weak and inconsistent fund raising, has recruited a seasoned institutional specialist to help reverse its fortunes and help it try to catch up in the all important fund-raising game. Dr. Sulayman Clark, who quietly joined the Fisk staff in early April as vice president for institutional development, got his start in fund raising in the mid-1980s as a special assistant to the president of Hampton University. He has since helped other schools craft ambitious ideas and raise millions of dollars for their endowments as a member of the executive teams at Morehouse College, Tuskegee University and, most recently, North Carolina Central University."
And here's a related story about another way Fisk might be able to solve its financial woes:
"Financially troubled Fisk University, plagued for years by weak and inconsistent fund raising, has recruited a seasoned institutional specialist to help reverse its fortunes and help it try to catch up in the all important fund-raising game. Dr. Sulayman Clark, who quietly joined the Fisk staff in early April as vice president for institutional development, got his start in fund raising in the mid-1980s as a special assistant to the president of Hampton University. He has since helped other schools craft ambitious ideas and raise millions of dollars for their endowments as a member of the executive teams at Morehouse College, Tuskegee University and, most recently, North Carolina Central University."
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
For Sale
The New York Post reports that Brant Publications -- which includes Interview magazine, The Magazine Antiques, and Art in America -- is up for sale. According to the Post, the company "recently retained Allen & Co. to 'explore strategic alternatives,' sources say, which is the publishing industry's lingo that investment bankers use when they put a media property up for sale to the highest bidder."
Lee Rosenbaum, who's a contributing editor at Art in America, has some inside scoop.
Lee Rosenbaum, who's a contributing editor at Art in America, has some inside scoop.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
"The list included one item that Mr. Thompson described as a final straw"
Here's Mass MoCA's Joe Thompson in The New York Times earlier this week:
"Mr. Büchel has not worked on the show since early last December, when he returned to Europe to attend to other projects and left behind a list of additional objects that he wanted the museum to find. The list included one item that Mr. Thompson described as a final straw: the fuselage from a large jetliner, like a 767, that Mr. Büchel wanted to be burned and bomb-damaged and then hung from the ceiling. 'That's when I began to put on the brakes on the project,' Mr. Thompson said in a recent interview at the museum ….'"
This has become part of the standard narrative of the dispute. See, e.g., Time's Richard Lacayo ("Joseph Thompson, the MASS MoCA director, says he finally called it quits when Buchel went back to Europe last December and left behind a list of new elements he needed for the installation, including the fuselage of a large jet liner ....").
But here's Joe Thompson in September 2006, in an email to Christoph:
From: Joe Thompson
Date: 16. September 2006 00:13:53 GMT+01:00
Subject: Big thoughts, key information
CB –
(...)
Only big things we haven’t really nailed down yet are the house, and the big airplane fuselage. Nato is hauling a ton of useful junk in every day, and Richard has found great bar stools, and related materials. Going pretty well on that front, and we’re just getting started.
(...)
I’m terrified about the costs, by the way. So far, we have zero in sponsorships, nada,…if you have any ideas for that, let me know, as I really have to get to work on that right away.
Joe
"Final straw," huh?
"Mr. Büchel has not worked on the show since early last December, when he returned to Europe to attend to other projects and left behind a list of additional objects that he wanted the museum to find. The list included one item that Mr. Thompson described as a final straw: the fuselage from a large jetliner, like a 767, that Mr. Büchel wanted to be burned and bomb-damaged and then hung from the ceiling. 'That's when I began to put on the brakes on the project,' Mr. Thompson said in a recent interview at the museum ….'"
This has become part of the standard narrative of the dispute. See, e.g., Time's Richard Lacayo ("Joseph Thompson, the MASS MoCA director, says he finally called it quits when Buchel went back to Europe last December and left behind a list of new elements he needed for the installation, including the fuselage of a large jet liner ....").
But here's Joe Thompson in September 2006, in an email to Christoph:
From: Joe Thompson
Date: 16. September 2006 00:13:53 GMT+01:00
Subject: Big thoughts, key information
CB –
(...)
Only big things we haven’t really nailed down yet are the house, and the big airplane fuselage. Nato is hauling a ton of useful junk in every day, and Richard has found great bar stools, and related materials. Going pretty well on that front, and we’re just getting started.
(...)
I’m terrified about the costs, by the way. So far, we have zero in sponsorships, nada,…if you have any ideas for that, let me know, as I really have to get to work on that right away.
Joe
"Final straw," huh?
Friday, May 25, 2007
Sotheby's Victory
Josh Baer: "Sotheby’s won a summary judgment in New York against Isabel Goldsmith (daughter of James Goldsmith and granddaughter of Antenor Patino) in a suit about works removed in the 1990’s from storage in London. The court ruled the British statute of limitations had expired for her over a work sold in NYC in 2001."
You can get the whole story here, from the UK's Daily Mail, which reports that Goldsmith is appealing the decision.
You can get the whole story here, from the UK's Daily Mail, which reports that Goldsmith is appealing the decision.
Picasso Lawsuit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had an article this week on a local dealer who is facing a $5 million lawsuit (and, apparently, some attention from the FBI) over a Picasso drawing the authenticity of which was rejected by the artist's daughter. It's a long story that all goes to "demonstrate how easy it is to be duped in the art world when contact is not face to face and how readily a dealer in need of money will pursue a proposition." The dealer says he's working on a memoir "about the high end of the art world, where people make statements and they have nothing to base them on."
The Next Front in the Deaccession Wars?
Carol Vogel's New York Times column today discusses the case of Virginia's Randolph-Macon Woman's College, which, "short on funds and fearful of losing its accreditation," is considering selling part of its "world-class collection of American art," valued at more than $100 million. Alice Walton makes the obligatory appearance. Lee Rosenbaum (who was on this story a couple of weeks ago) calls for the Virgina Attorney General to get involved.
In unrelated deaccessioning news, Wendy Moonan's antiques column in today's Times includes the following:
"The star lot of Sotheby’s June 7 antiquities sale is an ancient bronze figure of the goddess Artemis. The auction house’s antiquities specialist, Richard M. Keresey, calls it 'the best single piece I’ve seen here in 37 years.' The 36-inch-tall sculpture, which the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo is de-accessioning, is ... estimated to sell for $5 million to $7 million, more than double the highest previous estimate for an antiquity at Sotheby’s ...."
In unrelated deaccessioning news, Wendy Moonan's antiques column in today's Times includes the following:
"The star lot of Sotheby’s June 7 antiquities sale is an ancient bronze figure of the goddess Artemis. The auction house’s antiquities specialist, Richard M. Keresey, calls it 'the best single piece I’ve seen here in 37 years.' The 36-inch-tall sculpture, which the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo is de-accessioning, is ... estimated to sell for $5 million to $7 million, more than double the highest previous estimate for an antiquity at Sotheby’s ...."
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Mass MoCA's Lawsuit
The following is from a letter I sent today to Mass MoCA's lawyers regarding the lawsuit they have filed against my client Christoph Büchel. There are a bunch of factual inaccuracies floating around out there, which we will address, but, for now, the essential point to understand is that the Visual Artists Rights Act is there to prevent the exhibition of works of art that have been distorted or modified -- and the museum is doing exactly that six ways to Sunday here. No amount of "tarp" can cover that up.
Here's the text of the letter:
With respect to the proposed exhibition Made at MASS MoCA, your client should be aware that:
1. It is not possible to "shield" the work "from view" in the way that has been proposed. As Mr. Thompson well knows, the work is not merely a visual but also a physical experience; the design of the space itself, and the ways that the visitor is moved through it, are as much a part of the meaning of the artwork as the objects within it. To take just one example, to enter the gallery one must pass through the cinema that is an essential part of the work. There is no way to "cover" that up; the visitor experiences the work by moving through it, and being "inside" of it. Accordingly, the museum's plan to allow visitor access to the work while "shielding the huge objects from view" will result in nothing other than the exhibition of a drastically distorted and modified version of the work, in willful violation of VARA as well as the parties' clear understanding. It is also clear, based on the photos that ran in The New York Times and The North Adams Transcript on Tuesday (the latter expressly admitting that "the single-family house taken from Houghton Street in North Adams for artist Christoph Büchel's unfinished exhibit can be seen peeking above a tarped-off aisle"), that the effort to "shield" "the objects" from view is incomplete at best, so that, even if one were to think of the work in purely visual terms, the result of the museum's actions is the display of a highly distorted version of what was intended as an integrated work – a version in which some of the objects that make up the work can be seen by the viewer and others cannot, utterly destroying the work's meaning and integrity. If the museum follows through on this plan, rest assured that we will seek all available remedies, including for all past violations (on which see the May 23 "Exhibitionist" blog post by the Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers wondering "who hasn't" already seen the show).
2. In any event, it is not the case that what the museum is seeking permission to show is "Mr. Büchel's" unfinished work. Instead, numerous elements have been assembled without his involvement or approval, as a kind of guess as to how he would have done so. (So it's more like a painter leaving a canvas less than half finished -- and it is absolutely false, by the way, that the work is 90% completed -- and a museum picking up a brush and filling in the rest and then having the audacity to present the painting as a "work in progress" by the artist.) The lawsuit you have filed is essentially a request for permission to show a distorted, modified work to the public.
3. The act of "covering" objects from the work (again sometimes only partially) is itself an intentional distortion and/or modification, once more in violation of the law as well as the parties' understanding.
4. As the copyright holder, Mr. Büchel denies permission for the use of any installation photographs in the exhibition.
Here's the text of the letter:
With respect to the proposed exhibition Made at MASS MoCA, your client should be aware that:
1. It is not possible to "shield" the work "from view" in the way that has been proposed. As Mr. Thompson well knows, the work is not merely a visual but also a physical experience; the design of the space itself, and the ways that the visitor is moved through it, are as much a part of the meaning of the artwork as the objects within it. To take just one example, to enter the gallery one must pass through the cinema that is an essential part of the work. There is no way to "cover" that up; the visitor experiences the work by moving through it, and being "inside" of it. Accordingly, the museum's plan to allow visitor access to the work while "shielding the huge objects from view" will result in nothing other than the exhibition of a drastically distorted and modified version of the work, in willful violation of VARA as well as the parties' clear understanding. It is also clear, based on the photos that ran in The New York Times and The North Adams Transcript on Tuesday (the latter expressly admitting that "the single-family house taken from Houghton Street in North Adams for artist Christoph Büchel's unfinished exhibit can be seen peeking above a tarped-off aisle"), that the effort to "shield" "the objects" from view is incomplete at best, so that, even if one were to think of the work in purely visual terms, the result of the museum's actions is the display of a highly distorted version of what was intended as an integrated work – a version in which some of the objects that make up the work can be seen by the viewer and others cannot, utterly destroying the work's meaning and integrity. If the museum follows through on this plan, rest assured that we will seek all available remedies, including for all past violations (on which see the May 23 "Exhibitionist" blog post by the Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers wondering "who hasn't" already seen the show).
2. In any event, it is not the case that what the museum is seeking permission to show is "Mr. Büchel's" unfinished work. Instead, numerous elements have been assembled without his involvement or approval, as a kind of guess as to how he would have done so. (So it's more like a painter leaving a canvas less than half finished -- and it is absolutely false, by the way, that the work is 90% completed -- and a museum picking up a brush and filling in the rest and then having the audacity to present the painting as a "work in progress" by the artist.) The lawsuit you have filed is essentially a request for permission to show a distorted, modified work to the public.
3. The act of "covering" objects from the work (again sometimes only partially) is itself an intentional distortion and/or modification, once more in violation of the law as well as the parties' understanding.
4. As the copyright holder, Mr. Büchel denies permission for the use of any installation photographs in the exhibition.
Follow up on the Sotheby's building dispute
Last week I mentioned a dispute between Sotheby's and its landlord. I said it was a little hard to parse what was going on from the press reports. A colleague with knowledge of the dispute comes to the rescue:
"Sothebys has a right of first refusal on any sale by the owner (Aby Rosen). A couple of years ago Rosen sold a large equity stake in the project to a third party. The documents are poorly drafted and are ambiguous as to whether the right of first refusal applies to a sale of less than 100% of the equity interests in the entity that owns the building. That's what the dispute is about."
"Sothebys has a right of first refusal on any sale by the owner (Aby Rosen). A couple of years ago Rosen sold a large equity stake in the project to a third party. The documents are poorly drafted and are ambiguous as to whether the right of first refusal applies to a sale of less than 100% of the equity interests in the entity that owns the building. That's what the dispute is about."
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Watch out for the average-looking ones
The Chicago Tribune reports on an "average-looking couple" -- "the Midwestern type" -- who stole a $60,000 Rembrandt etching from a Chicago gallery on Sunday. The work, called "Adam and Eve," was taken from a "preview room" next to the receptionist's desk. The owner of the gallery says the piece was insured, "but not for its asking price."
Smithsonian Copyright Challenge
The AP reports on an interesting copyright dispute involving the Smithsonian Institution. The nonprofit Public.Resource.Org thinks the copyright language on the Smithsonian Images web site (e.g., "even in the absence of copyright, Smithsonian still reserves all rights to image use") is too restrictive and, in response, has apparently downloaded all 6,288 images from the site and posted them for all to use for free on flickr.com.
Lawprof Deven Desai says "the issue is whether the holder of the physical thing (here a picture) can impose extra limits on the use of that thing." He says "the question becomes complicated rather fast," but suggests that "there may be a distinction between a public entity (which ... the Smithsonian is) and a private entity’s ability to use contract in this way."
Cornell's Peter Hirtle wishes the Smithsonian didn't try to assert control over its images, but says "everything I have read suggests that what the Smithsonian tried to do is legal."
Lawprof Deven Desai says "the issue is whether the holder of the physical thing (here a picture) can impose extra limits on the use of that thing." He says "the question becomes complicated rather fast," but suggests that "there may be a distinction between a public entity (which ... the Smithsonian is) and a private entity’s ability to use contract in this way."
Cornell's Peter Hirtle wishes the Smithsonian didn't try to assert control over its images, but says "everything I have read suggests that what the Smithsonian tried to do is legal."
Sunday, May 20, 2007
NPR on Stylometry
Stylometrician George Johnson was a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation Friday. You can listen here. I mentioned Johnson's project last week here.
Perpetual Copyright? (UPDATED)
Novelist Mark Helprin has an editorial in today's New York Times arguing for infinite copyright. Glenn Reynolds thinks it would be unconstitutional (see here and, for a more in depth treatment of the subject, here). Cory Doctorow thinks the editorial is "silly." And Larry Lessig has set up a wiki page for a collective rebuttal.
UPDATE: Ilya Somin has a detailed post at the Volokh Conspiracy arguing that Helprin's proposal is "deeply flawed." Matthew Yglesias says "unfortunately, [Helprin] doesn't consider any of the various reasons that make this a terrible idea. Is it, for example, really such a bad thing that community theaters and schools all throughout the country (and, indeed, the world) can put on productions of Shakespeare's plays without paying stiff licensing fees?" Justin Levine (also thinking specifically of Shakespeare) says "Helprin's idea is not merely wrong - it would be utterly destructive to any semblance of artistic culture."
I'll let you know if I find anyone who likes the idea.
UPDATE: Ilya Somin has a detailed post at the Volokh Conspiracy arguing that Helprin's proposal is "deeply flawed." Matthew Yglesias says "unfortunately, [Helprin] doesn't consider any of the various reasons that make this a terrible idea. Is it, for example, really such a bad thing that community theaters and schools all throughout the country (and, indeed, the world) can put on productions of Shakespeare's plays without paying stiff licensing fees?" Justin Levine (also thinking specifically of Shakespeare) says "Helprin's idea is not merely wrong - it would be utterly destructive to any semblance of artistic culture."
I'll let you know if I find anyone who likes the idea.
Liz
Giving me the opportunity to post about Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in the same week, this is from yesterday's New York Times:
"An American court ruled on Friday that Elizabeth Taylor can keep her van Gogh, Reuters reported. Ms. Taylor, 75, bought the 1889 painting 'View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Rémy' at a London auction in 1963 for [about $257,000]. South African and Canadian descendants of Margarete Mauthner, a Jewish woman who fled Germany in 1939, sued her in 2004, saying the work had been confiscated by the Nazis and should be returned to them under the Holocaust Victims Redress Act. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals backed a lower court, ruling that the family had waited too long in claiming the painting ..."
More from the San Francisco Chronicle here. The Ninth Circuit ruling is here. Shaun Martin at the University of San Diego School of Law says the decision "seems pretty right."
"An American court ruled on Friday that Elizabeth Taylor can keep her van Gogh, Reuters reported. Ms. Taylor, 75, bought the 1889 painting 'View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Rémy' at a London auction in 1963 for [about $257,000]. South African and Canadian descendants of Margarete Mauthner, a Jewish woman who fled Germany in 1939, sued her in 2004, saying the work had been confiscated by the Nazis and should be returned to them under the Holocaust Victims Redress Act. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals backed a lower court, ruling that the family had waited too long in claiming the painting ..."
More from the San Francisco Chronicle here. The Ninth Circuit ruling is here. Shaun Martin at the University of San Diego School of Law says the decision "seems pretty right."
Friday, May 18, 2007
Beautiful Fakes
In todays' New York Times, Grace Glueck reviews a show at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich called "Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception," which is "devoted by and large to intentional art faking or forgery, applied to paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and photographs, and the many means of doing it." Glueck writes:
"The show raises the question of what exactly a fake or forgery is, and how do you tell one from, say, an artist’s honest attempt to copy the work of another? Not simple questions, as Nancy Hall-Duncan, senior curator at the Bruce who assembled the show, makes clear in her catalog essay. As a basic definition she holds a forgery to be 'a work that, by mimicking the style of an artist or replicating his signature, represents itself as being produced by that artist,' constituting 'a deliberate attempt to deceive.'"
The show includes “pre-Columbian” knockoffs produced by BrÃgido Lara, who, when he was arrested in 1974 on grounds of trafficking in stolen artifacts, requested some clay and produced copies of the supposed "artifacts," earning his release. He ended up being hired by an anthropology museum as a restorer: "Now authorized to make legitimate replicas, he signs them but continues to assert that his creations, both signed and unsigned, are not forgeries." It also includes "probably the 20th century’s most famous forger," Han van Meegeren, whose “Christ and His Disciples at Emmaus,” painted to look like a Vermeer, was bought in 1937 by the Dutch Rembrandt Society for about $4.7 million in today’s dollars and donated to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In 1945, at the end of World War II, he was arrested on charges of collaboration with the enemy and, in the process, confessed to forging 14 Dutch masterpieces, including “Christ and His Disciples,” and was sentenced to a year in prison (but died six weeks after sentencing).
Maureen Mullarkey reviewed the show earlier this week for The New York Sun.
"The show raises the question of what exactly a fake or forgery is, and how do you tell one from, say, an artist’s honest attempt to copy the work of another? Not simple questions, as Nancy Hall-Duncan, senior curator at the Bruce who assembled the show, makes clear in her catalog essay. As a basic definition she holds a forgery to be 'a work that, by mimicking the style of an artist or replicating his signature, represents itself as being produced by that artist,' constituting 'a deliberate attempt to deceive.'"
The show includes “pre-Columbian” knockoffs produced by BrÃgido Lara, who, when he was arrested in 1974 on grounds of trafficking in stolen artifacts, requested some clay and produced copies of the supposed "artifacts," earning his release. He ended up being hired by an anthropology museum as a restorer: "Now authorized to make legitimate replicas, he signs them but continues to assert that his creations, both signed and unsigned, are not forgeries." It also includes "probably the 20th century’s most famous forger," Han van Meegeren, whose “Christ and His Disciples at Emmaus,” painted to look like a Vermeer, was bought in 1937 by the Dutch Rembrandt Society for about $4.7 million in today’s dollars and donated to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In 1945, at the end of World War II, he was arrested on charges of collaboration with the enemy and, in the process, confessed to forging 14 Dutch masterpieces, including “Christ and His Disciples,” and was sentenced to a year in prison (but died six weeks after sentencing).
Maureen Mullarkey reviewed the show earlier this week for The New York Sun.
Albright-Knox "Auction Coups"
"Radical conservative" anti-deaccessionist Lee Rosenbaum notes that the Albright-Knox "scored unexpectedly large windfalls for its deaccessioned masterpieces at yesterday's African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art sale at Sotheby's: Its bronze Benin Head of an Oba fetched $4.74 million against an estimate of $1-1.5 million and its Aztec Stone Figure of the Goddess with Tasseled Headdress, Known as Chalchiuhtlicue, sold for $1.22 million, compared to an estimate of merely $100,000-150,000." All told, the museum earned nearly $6 million in this, the third of six auctions of items from its permanent collection. The Buffalo News says that brings the total up to $26 million, a figure that is "expected to increase dramatically by the final auction June 7, when the gallery auctions a number of antiquities, most notably the highly valued bronze 'Artemis and the Stag.'" They are auctioning off another 10 items of American Indian art today, expected to bring a total of less than $100,000.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
"A Bombshell Decision"
That's how Anthony Falzone, Executive Director of Stanford's Fair Use Project, describes the Marilyn Monroe opinion discussed earlier here and here:
"Is this a big deal? You bet. Licensing dead celebrities is a multi-million dollar business. But California ... only passed the statute creating post-mortem publicity rights in 1984. Lots of the hottest dead celebrities (licensing-wise) died long before that, and millions of licensing revenue stands to disappear under this decision. The beneficiaries of this windfall will not let that money go without a fight. So I expect to hear a lot more about this issue."
"Is this a big deal? You bet. Licensing dead celebrities is a multi-million dollar business. But California ... only passed the statute creating post-mortem publicity rights in 1984. Lots of the hottest dead celebrities (licensing-wise) died long before that, and millions of licensing revenue stands to disappear under this decision. The beneficiaries of this windfall will not let that money go without a fight. So I expect to hear a lot more about this issue."
Perishable Art
The Wall Street Journal this week looked at "how ... collectors preserve and insure works that may be short-lived -- often by design":
"Some of the priciest contemporary works -- such as Damien Hirst's dead shark in a tank and Jeff Koons's 40-foot-high topiary puppy -- are made from perishable or delicate materials whose deterioration isn't covered by insurers. Other works ... use synthetic paints that may not hold up over time and aren't easily restored .... Some installation pieces are even meant to disappear over time."
The article points out that these works create all sorts of insurance complications:
"Insurance policies almost always rule out insuring art objects for 'inherent vice,' which includes natural deterioration such as rot and mold, or mechanical wear and tear. Vermin and insect damage, which affect textiles and objects made from organic materials, are also excluded from coverage. Insurance policies cover only damage from unexpected events like fire, theft and accidents. Because of the difficulty of restoring some fragile contemporary artworks, some art insurers are charging as much as double the premium they would charge for more durable pieces such as oil paintings. Policies also may stipulate that collectors take painstaking conservation efforts, such as controlling light and temperature in the environment, as a condition of providing coverage. If the conditions aren't met, claims won't be paid."
Lawprof Frank Pasquale says, with works of this sort, "we might expect all manner of contractual specs to accompany purchases," and connects this story to one by Marc Spiegler in New York Magazine not too long ago, about the young artist Terence Koh:
"What’s shocking is that collectors are willing to pay such prices for pieces of uncertain durability. From the beginning, Koh has made a habit of using unusual materials: chocolate, semen, blood, vomit, Chanel lipstick. At first, Koh and [and his dealer Javier] Peres made the mistake of selling the work without detailing its fragility. 'In our rush, our naïveté, it seemed clear that this work was going to change—I mean, it was made of ashes and chocolate. And collectors would later come and say, "This broke, can you fix it?"' Peres recalls. 'Now, no work of Terence leaves my gallery without a release, because his materials are quite unusual."
"Some of the priciest contemporary works -- such as Damien Hirst's dead shark in a tank and Jeff Koons's 40-foot-high topiary puppy -- are made from perishable or delicate materials whose deterioration isn't covered by insurers. Other works ... use synthetic paints that may not hold up over time and aren't easily restored .... Some installation pieces are even meant to disappear over time."
The article points out that these works create all sorts of insurance complications:
"Insurance policies almost always rule out insuring art objects for 'inherent vice,' which includes natural deterioration such as rot and mold, or mechanical wear and tear. Vermin and insect damage, which affect textiles and objects made from organic materials, are also excluded from coverage. Insurance policies cover only damage from unexpected events like fire, theft and accidents. Because of the difficulty of restoring some fragile contemporary artworks, some art insurers are charging as much as double the premium they would charge for more durable pieces such as oil paintings. Policies also may stipulate that collectors take painstaking conservation efforts, such as controlling light and temperature in the environment, as a condition of providing coverage. If the conditions aren't met, claims won't be paid."
Lawprof Frank Pasquale says, with works of this sort, "we might expect all manner of contractual specs to accompany purchases," and connects this story to one by Marc Spiegler in New York Magazine not too long ago, about the young artist Terence Koh:
"What’s shocking is that collectors are willing to pay such prices for pieces of uncertain durability. From the beginning, Koh has made a habit of using unusual materials: chocolate, semen, blood, vomit, Chanel lipstick. At first, Koh and [and his dealer Javier] Peres made the mistake of selling the work without detailing its fragility. 'In our rush, our naïveté, it seemed clear that this work was going to change—I mean, it was made of ashes and chocolate. And collectors would later come and say, "This broke, can you fix it?"' Peres recalls. 'Now, no work of Terence leaves my gallery without a release, because his materials are quite unusual."
Google Thumbnails
A decision from the Ninth Circuit yesterday in a closely-watched case involving Google's display of thumbnail images in search results. The Washington Post has the story: "A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Google did not infringe on the copyrights of an adult publishing company by displaying thumbnail images of its nude photographs, handing Internet search companies a victory by allowing the display of such miniature pictures in search results." The decision is here. John Ottaviani has a good summary here. Lawprof Alfred Yen has some thoughts.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The Albright-Knox Deaccessioning Continues (UPDATED)
Buffalo Business First reports: "The Albright-Knox Art Gallery stands to gain another $1.5 million to $2 million this week as the next series of artwork is sold in auctions Thursday and Friday at Sotheby's in New York. Fourteen pieces of art are included in auctions of African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art on May 17; with another 10 pieces included in the American Indian art sale May 18."
Previous sales have already brought in $23 million for the museum.
UPDATE: More today from Lindsay Pollock in The Art Newspaper.
Previous sales have already brought in $23 million for the museum.
UPDATE: More today from Lindsay Pollock in The Art Newspaper.
Gamble Pays Off
I mentioned last week the $46 million guarantee Sotheby's gave to David Rockefeller for the sale of his Rothko. The work sold last night for $72.8 million, setting records, according to Carol Vogel in The New York Times, "for both the artist and for any contemporary work at auction."
More on guarantees, and other "tricks of the auction trade," from Lee Rosenbaum in yesterdays' Wall Street Journal. Lots of interesting stuff, including that Sotheby's recently "collected $20 million from its 'key man' life insurance policy for Robert Noortman, the Dutch dealer in old masters who died unexpectedly in January, only seven months after the auction house acquired his gallery -- and its $56.41 million inventory -- in exchange for Sotheby's shares worth about $56.5 million, as well as the assumption of about $26 million in debt."
More on guarantees, and other "tricks of the auction trade," from Lee Rosenbaum in yesterdays' Wall Street Journal. Lots of interesting stuff, including that Sotheby's recently "collected $20 million from its 'key man' life insurance policy for Robert Noortman, the Dutch dealer in old masters who died unexpectedly in January, only seven months after the auction house acquired his gallery -- and its $56.41 million inventory -- in exchange for Sotheby's shares worth about $56.5 million, as well as the assumption of about $26 million in debt."
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Monroe Case: The View from Indiana
CMG Worldwide Inc., which came out on the losing end in the Marilyn Monroe case discussed here last week, is headquartered in Indiana, primarily, one assumes, because of its 100-year-long postmortem right of publicity, and this weekend the Indianapolis Business Journal took a look at the decision. The bottom line:
"[CMG] represents about 250 famous people, most of them dead, including James Dean, Babe Ruth and Buddy Holly. Monroe, one of its highest-grossing clients, has raked in more than $30 million in licensing fees in the last dozen years for everything from TV commercials to T-shirts—with roughly 25 percent of that windfall landing in CMG coffers. But that spigot of cash could slow to a drip if a higher court upholds a ruling early this month by a federal judge in New York, and if a series of similar lawsuits nationwide result in additional setbacks for CMG."
"[CMG] represents about 250 famous people, most of them dead, including James Dean, Babe Ruth and Buddy Holly. Monroe, one of its highest-grossing clients, has raked in more than $30 million in licensing fees in the last dozen years for everything from TV commercials to T-shirts—with roughly 25 percent of that windfall landing in CMG coffers. But that spigot of cash could slow to a drip if a higher court upholds a ruling early this month by a federal judge in New York, and if a series of similar lawsuits nationwide result in additional setbacks for CMG."
Seriality
This week's New York Times Magazine introduces a new "Sunday Serial" by crime writer Ian Rankin that they describe this way: "What happens when a rich, bored businessman and his art-world friends team up with a notorious Edinburgh gangster to steal paintings?" The first installment is here.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Moir Renoir
The Art Newspaper reports that the Renoir family archive has been acquired by Rima Fine Art in Arizona. Of course multiple lawsuits ensued. I can't even keep track any more. Read for yourself here.
Stylomite!!!
The Christian Science Monitor reports on a potential new weapon in the authenticity wars: stylometry. Which is pretty much what it sounds like:
"While the specifics of stylometric analysis differ depending on the medium being examined, the basic strategy is similar across the board. First, the work of art in question is divided into components, which can be words, high and low tones, or different visual frequencies (the frequency of a still pond in a painting is distinct from that of a busy flower garden, for example). Next, each component is subjected to statistical tests that measure how they compare to components of authentic works created by the same artist."
More from Wikipedia, which points out it's actually not so new: "Stylometry grew out of earlier techniques of analyzing texts for evidence of authenticity, authorial identity, and other questions. An early example is Lorenzo Valla's 1439 proof that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery, an argument based partly on a comparison of the Latin with that used in authentic 4th Century documents."
"While the specifics of stylometric analysis differ depending on the medium being examined, the basic strategy is similar across the board. First, the work of art in question is divided into components, which can be words, high and low tones, or different visual frequencies (the frequency of a still pond in a painting is distinct from that of a busy flower garden, for example). Next, each component is subjected to statistical tests that measure how they compare to components of authentic works created by the same artist."
More from Wikipedia, which points out it's actually not so new: "Stylometry grew out of earlier techniques of analyzing texts for evidence of authenticity, authorial identity, and other questions. An early example is Lorenzo Valla's 1439 proof that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery, an argument based partly on a comparison of the Latin with that used in authentic 4th Century documents."
Friday, May 11, 2007
"Sotheby’s and Its Landlord Battle Over Building’s Sale"
Sorry for the light posting. I was out of town for a couple of days. Jumping back in, today's New York Times reports on a dispute that's brewing between Sotheby's and developer/art collector Aby Rosen, who bought the Sotheby's building for $175 million in 2002 and has now put it up for auction seeking at least $500 million. (Final bids were due today.) It's a little hard to figure out from the article what's going on. It quotes anonymous sources as saying "Sotheby’s contends that Mr. Rosen should have offered to sell the building back to Sotheby’s in 2005 for about $300 million, under what is known in real estate circles as its 'right of first offer.'" Rosen's marketing materials do state that any sale "is subject to Sotheby’s right to match the best offer he gets, according to a real estate executive who has seen the document," so it sounds like the dispute is over how to interpret the relevant provision of the contract. (The article also says "Sotheby’s did not discover this right [of first offer] until after Mr. Rosen put the building on the auction block this year," but that doesn't sound right.) Stay tuned.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Neverending Story
The UK Telegraph had an exhaustive story this weekend on what the headline called "the Renoir wars" -- the ongoing series of lawsuits between the descendants of Renoir and an assistant namd Richard Guino. It began in 1965, with Guino suing the Renoir estate, claiming to be c0-author of a series of sculptures created from 1913 until Renoir's death in 1919 (nine months after Guino's death in 1973, he prevailed in the lawsuit) and continues today with the Arizona lawsuit that was mentioned earlier here.
More on the latest twists from the Art Newspaper here.
More on the latest twists from the Art Newspaper here.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Scary Art Theft
A violent art theft in the U.K. over the weekend:
"[Five artworks] by LS Lowry have been stolen by robbers who tied up their owner and threatened his family with knives. Louise Aird, 40, let the gang in to the house ... thinking it was a post delivery. Three men, armed with knives, tied her art collector husband Ivan up, in what police said was a 'terrifying' raid."
The BBC story is here. Derek Fincham says "the trick of course will be how the thieves can cash in on the theft."
"[Five artworks] by LS Lowry have been stolen by robbers who tied up their owner and threatened his family with knives. Louise Aird, 40, let the gang in to the house ... thinking it was a post delivery. Three men, armed with knives, tied her art collector husband Ivan up, in what police said was a 'terrifying' raid."
The BBC story is here. Derek Fincham says "the trick of course will be how the thieves can cash in on the theft."
Fisk Update
Jonathan Marx reports in The Nashville Tennessean that the court has approved the Tennessee Attorney General's motion to intervene (mentioned earlier here) in the lawsuit between Fisk University and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.
The Nashville Scene's Elizabeth Ulrich applauds, saying the two paintings at issue "may have a fighting chance after all." I'm not sure what it is that the AG wants to see happen. Is it that the works not be sold at all, which would presumably make the "radical conservatives" happy? Or is it that they be sold for a price higher than the one Fisk originally agreed to (on the basis of an appraisal that was two years old at the time), which would presumably make Yale's Jock Reynolds happy but might also result in the O'Keeffe painting not going to the publicly accessible O'Keeffe museum but rather to some private collection somewhere? What is it that people want here?
Next hearing is May 31.
The Nashville Scene's Elizabeth Ulrich applauds, saying the two paintings at issue "may have a fighting chance after all." I'm not sure what it is that the AG wants to see happen. Is it that the works not be sold at all, which would presumably make the "radical conservatives" happy? Or is it that they be sold for a price higher than the one Fisk originally agreed to (on the basis of an appraisal that was two years old at the time), which would presumably make Yale's Jock Reynolds happy but might also result in the O'Keeffe painting not going to the publicly accessible O'Keeffe museum but rather to some private collection somewhere? What is it that people want here?
Next hearing is May 31.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Something had to give
A potentially huge decision in the Southern District of New York late last week: Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that Marilyn Monroe's right of publicity -- that is, the right to control the use of her name, image, or likeness on merchandise -- did not survive her death in 1962. The AP story is here. The opinion is here. The simple logic of the decision was: since (1) "only property actually owned by a testator at the time of her death can be devised by will" and (2) there was no relevant jurisdiction that "recognized descendible postmortem publicity rights at the time of Ms. Monroe's death," therefore (3) "she could not transfer any such rights through her will." (Or, as Marty Schwimmer puts it: "a post-mortem right cannot be created after death.")
Bill Zale, editor of CCH Advertising Law Guide, has this summary:
"To this day, New York law ... limits its statutory publicity rights to living persons, the court said. California passed a postmortem right of publicity statute in 1984 .... Before that, a common law right of publicity existed in California, but it was not freely transferable or descendible, according to the court. Indiana first recognized a descendible, postmortem right of publicity in 1994, when it passed the Right of Publicity Act .... Thus, any publicity rights that Monroe enjoyed during her lifetime were extinguished at her death by operation of law, the court concluded."
Bill Zale, editor of CCH Advertising Law Guide, has this summary:
"To this day, New York law ... limits its statutory publicity rights to living persons, the court said. California passed a postmortem right of publicity statute in 1984 .... Before that, a common law right of publicity existed in California, but it was not freely transferable or descendible, according to the court. Indiana first recognized a descendible, postmortem right of publicity in 1994, when it passed the Right of Publicity Act .... Thus, any publicity rights that Monroe enjoyed during her lifetime were extinguished at her death by operation of law, the court concluded."
Thursday, May 03, 2007
More Guarantees
In a preview of the upcoming spring auctions, Carol Vogel says the competition between Sotheby’s and Christie’s is heating up, and "supergenerous" guarantees — "undisclosed minimum prices paid to the sellers regardless of a sale’s outcome" — are playing a central role:
"According to recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sotheby’s has promised sellers nearly $300 million in guarantees for property being sold this spring and summer. Since Christie’s is privately held, it is not required to disclose such financial information, but executives there say it has about the same amount of money tied up in [guarantees]."
She adds that, on top of the guarantees, "Sotheby’s and Christie’s are routinely giving consignors a percentage of the fees it charges buyers." One example that's mentioned is a 1950 Rothko being sold by David Rockefeller at Sotheby's. The estimate for the painting is $40 million (nearly twice the previous auction record for Rothko, set in 2005), but Sotheby's has guaranteed Rockefeller $46 million, "not to mention giving him a lion’s share of the buyer’s premium." (He bought the painting in 1960 for less than $10,000.)
I posted on the increasing use of auction house guarantees here and here.
"According to recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sotheby’s has promised sellers nearly $300 million in guarantees for property being sold this spring and summer. Since Christie’s is privately held, it is not required to disclose such financial information, but executives there say it has about the same amount of money tied up in [guarantees]."
She adds that, on top of the guarantees, "Sotheby’s and Christie’s are routinely giving consignors a percentage of the fees it charges buyers." One example that's mentioned is a 1950 Rothko being sold by David Rockefeller at Sotheby's. The estimate for the painting is $40 million (nearly twice the previous auction record for Rothko, set in 2005), but Sotheby's has guaranteed Rockefeller $46 million, "not to mention giving him a lion’s share of the buyer’s premium." (He bought the painting in 1960 for less than $10,000.)
I posted on the increasing use of auction house guarantees here and here.
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