Sweet and Sour

Ed Winkleman has an interesting piece in The Art Newspaper calling for the adoption in New York of a droit de suite regime, which would entitle artists to claim royalties on resales of their work by initial (or subsequent) purchasers. He argues that this would reduce "resentment over extraordinary profits" by collectors, which in turn would lead to fewer "unnecessary secrets" in the art market.

The standard economic argument against droit de suite is that, in a world where the artist retains it, presumably the initial purchaser will pay less for the work -- by something like the present value of the expected future resale royalty. So the artist is trading some guaranteed money today for a chance at a possible additional payment at some point in the future -- a bad deal. It also functions as what's been called a "negative insurance" policy: it pays off for the artist if she becomes more successful over time (as reflected in higher prices for her work); but if she is less successful, the droit de suite doesn't do her any good.

"There are all kinds of ways the state can support the art world. This doesn't strike me as a very good one"

Michael Rushton makes a convincing case against Mexico's policy of letting (certain) artists pay their taxes with artwork.

Linkage

• Roman sculptures pulled from auction.
• Jersey City Museum on the brink.
• NYCLU opposes proposed rules limiting art sales in City parks.
• Guilty plea in fake Picasso case.
• Leading art fabricator Carlson & Co. is closing.
• "The 'fair use economy' is enormous, growing, and endangered by the relatively tiny entertainment industry."
• Culture of corruption at Drouot auction house.

"We're helping out artists while building a cultural inheritance for the country"

In Mexico, artists can pay their income taxes with artwork.

Pole Dancing Is Not Art

N.Y. Tax Appeals Panel Rules.

Linkage

• "Art Finance Partners demands $300,000, plus punitive damages, from Wally Findlay Galleries International, claiming it sold the consigned painting ... but didn't deliver the money."
• Inquest begins in public art tragedy.
• Why are nonprofits exempt from the property tax?
• 20-25% of charities to lose their tax-exempt status on May 15.
• Museums and salaries.
• Five cleared in U.K. extortion case involving a stolen Leonardo masterpiece. Art Theft Central comments here.

"A park without art is like eating spaghetti without spaghetti sauce"

The New York Times has a report on yesterday's public hearing on the proposal to limit the number of art-sellers in City parks.

"By most accounts Mr. Young never paid much attention to his finances . . ."

" . . . and in his last years he became involved in a tangled legal battle with a former manager, Martin Siskind, whom Mr. Young sued for mismanaging funds. Mr. Siskind successfully petitioned a judge to have Mr. Young declared mentally incompetent, and his affairs were placed in the control of legal guardians. Several of Mr. Young’s friends say that he was in no way incompetent, and that the arrangement had left him destitute."

That's from Bruce Weber's obituary in today's New York Times for outsider artist Purvis Young. I mentioned the Siskind lawsuit back in 2007 here.

" . . . providing merely an equitable basis to permit some copying of the owner’s expression that are not harmful to the copyright owner"

Raymond Nimmer: Has the worm turned on transformative use?

Park West Loss

After a six-week trial, a jury found in favor of the Fine Art Registry in its lawsuit against Park West Galleries. They rejected Park West's defamation claims, and awarded Fine Art Registry $500,000 on a Lanham Act claim stemming from "Park West's use of a Fine Art Registry trademark in sponsored links on search engines, to drive Internet user queries to a Park West reputation management page online." Park West still faces "eight other state and federal lawsuits seeking more than $22 million in damages; most of those cases were consolidated a few months ago into a multi-district federal lawsuit that heads to trial next year in Seattle."

"Institutions have to change in order to survive"

The Atlantic: Are Fine Art Museums the Next Starbucks?

Twist in the Stolen Rockwell Case

Tom Flynn reports that Art Loss Register, which acted on behalf of Jack Solomon in his dispute with Judy Cutler over a stolen Rockwell painting, plans to sue Solomon. ALR wouldn't comment further, but Flynn says "it would appear to be because Solomon failed to apprise them of the full details of the case."

Linkage

• What are the optimal jurisdictional arrangements for arts policy?
• What is Justice Stevens's IP legacy?
• On quantifying the stolen art business. (And here.)
• Protest planned against proposed rules limiting art vendors in City parks.
• An exhibition of fakes.

Polaroid Collection Update

The Art Newspaper has the latest on "the last-gasp campaign to stop the sale of works from the Polaroid Collection." Apparently 56 artists have signed on to be plaintiffs in a motion for a rehearing "which campaigners hope to file" in Minnesota bankruptcy court. The campaigner-in-chief is former US magistrate judge Sam Joyner, who says he is "trying to find pro-bono legal representation."

Joyner says that "according to the photographers, some of the works were placed in the collection with promises of no commercial use, and perpetual access to the image by the photographers."

The Art Market Monitor counters: "The courts have already made it clear that they have altered the terms of the contract between the artists and the Polaroid Corporation. Whether that is 'morally' right is less important than the fact that it is legally correct. Bankruptcy courts change contracts and ownership rights. That’s what they do."

The usual comprehensive round-up from A.D. Coleman here.

Met-Adams Settlement

The Fresno Bee reports that the lawsuit by Ansel Adams's son against "the former" Fresno Metropolitan Museum has been settled:

"The museum will return to [Adams] photographs that were not intended to be sold to private collectors, according to Michael Wilhelm, an attorney representing the museum. In exchange, [Adams] will give the museum other Ansel Adams photographs of equal value from [his] collection. Those photos will be included in the museum's upcoming art auction to raise money to pay its creditors."

"It was an honest mistake"

Mike Boehm points out that, on the version of the facts accepted by the trial judge, Stephen Spielberg should never have had to give up his "stolen" Rockwell.

"I’m not sure I ever saw what was so controversial"

Dealer Gavin Brown on the New Museum "controversy": "I don’t see the problem—are people upset about the works in the exhibitions? Do they not want to see that work? The ones who do see a problem are small-minded people keeping score in their small-minded game."

Linkage

• The California AG's report on MOCA mismanagement. (Background here.)
• "We're short of cops to begin with and we don't have enough cops to waste answering calls of statues committing suicide."
  
• Conviction upheld. (Background here.)
• Is Michelangelo overrated?
• Tom Flynn on the stolen Rockwell decision. (Background here.)
• "The details of the disagreement have provided a rare view into a normally very private world of high-end art selling in which membership rules, responsibilities, rewards and reprisals can be so complex and changeable that even art world veterans say they sometimes struggle to decode them." (More here.)
  
• NYT on the proposal to limit number of art vendors in city parks. (Mentioned earlier here.)

"Slick, happily one-sided"

Colin Dabkowski of the Buffalo News on "The Art of the Steal": "We don’t get nearly enough face time from those in favor of the move, which seems attributable as much to the filmmaker’s bias as it is to those who refused to be interviewed for the project. Some of the finer nuances in the battle between Barnes’ rigid and nigh pig-headed intentions and the laudable desire for more people to draw wonder from the art he collected go unexplored in favor of grandiose polemics."

How Not to Deaccession

The Blanden Memorial Art Museum comes in for some harsh criticism from the AAM for its "Art is for Everyone" sale. Background here and here.