Thursday, April 30, 2020

"This is how bad things are for museums: They now have a green light to sell off their art"

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Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post. It's a pretty levelheaded piece, as these things go, but it fails to grapple with the fact tha...
Monday, April 27, 2020

"To Keep the Industry Alive, the AAMD Must Permanently Give Museums Freer Rein to Sell Work" (UPDATED)

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This guy makes a very compelling case at ARTnews. UPDATE: Brian Frye : "The jig is up, folks." Tom Flynn : "[E]ven witho...

"Like many crises, it is hard to imagine the old rules sliding neatly into place afterwards."

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Nicholas O'Donnell:  How far can museums go to stay afloat during the current crisis?

"Does appraising art ... reduce the appraiser’s appreciation for art the way working in a pork factory might reduce a worker’s appetite for bacon?" (UPDATED)

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Marginal Revolution:  Corrupted by Commerce? (The answer, by the way, seems to be no: "In fact 'a majority of the assessors stated...
Saturday, April 25, 2020

"From Afar, a Fugitive in the Knoedler Art Fraud Gives His Defense"

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" [I]n his first in-depth interview, Mr. Bergantiños Diaz, a fugitive living in Spain, has acknowledged to a documentary filmmaker that...
Friday, April 24, 2020

"Against Deaccessioning Rules" (UPDATED)

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Forthcoming in the Creighton Law Review, from Deaccessioning Hall of Fame Scholar-in-Residence  (and conceptual law professor ) Brian Frye....
Thursday, April 23, 2020

"Artist Howardena Pindell Sues Former Gallery, Claiming ‘Misleading’ Information About Sales"

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" By 'operating through a maze of business entities,' the lawsuit claims, G. R. N’Namdi Gallery obfuscated information about th...
Thursday, April 16, 2020

So you mean it's not so repulsive after all? (UPDATED 4X)

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A couple days ago I quoted Allan Schwartzman as saying ""I can’t imagine that the museum associations will not be obliged to reth...

A documentary about the Knoedler scandal is about to be released

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You can watch the trailer here .
Tuesday, April 14, 2020

"But in reality, the CASE Act will just help predatory law firms extract even more unjustified settlements from unsuspecting businesses and charities."

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Conceptual lawprof (and Deaccessioning Hall of Fame Scholar-in-Residence ) Brian Frye is not a fan of the proposed copyright small claims c...

"I can’t imagine that the museum associations will not be obliged to rethink the core requirements of economic survival in relation to some of the assets that they own in their collections."

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Speaking of deaccessioning ... the above quote is from Allan Schwartzman's latest podcast with Charlotte Burns (it's just a passing...

Tell Steven Miller Again About the Public Trust

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All American Museum Collections Are For Sale, Just Make An Offer .

"Thus, the Players, who were neither requested nor agreed to limit the display or depiction of the images tattooed onto their bodies, had implied licenses to use the Tattoos as elements of their likenesses."

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I've mentioned before that there have been a series of lawsuits against sports video game makers by tattoo artists (for example, where ...

Art law scams, screw-ups, etc.

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Assorted art law (and related) thoughts from Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, including on the Christie's sales tax story  ("During these ti...
Friday, April 10, 2020

"Christie’s to Pay Up to $16.7 Million Fine Over Tax Violations"

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New York Times story here . Art Newspaper here .
Tuesday, March 31, 2020

"The heist comes as museums in much of Europe and the United States are closed in attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus."

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The New York Times:  Early van Gogh Painting Stolen From Dutch Museum .
Monday, March 30, 2020

"On its face, this dispute centers on a technical legal question about whether a 2014 email from Mr. Fordjour to Mr. Blumenthal that outlined the terms of their arrangement constituted a strict sales contract or a different kind of deal, called a consignment agreement."

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The New York Times has a story on the Derek Fordjour lawsuit. Background here .
Friday, March 27, 2020

"In short, under the Second Circuit’s test, a work is of recognized stature when a community of art experts says it is."

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Very good piece by MKW's Dave Steiner on the 5Pointz decision . He finds the damages aspect of the case less interesting than I do and...
Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Supreme Court Rules States Immune from Copyright Suits

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Story here . Opinion here . Analysis here . Angry tweetstorm here .
Monday, March 23, 2020

"The Artist Behind Meow Wolf’s Beloved Fantastical Space Owl Is Suing the Company for More Than $1 Million"

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Story here . Here's some background on Meow Wolf from the New York Times Magazine last year:  Can an Art Collective Become the Disney ...