Please, sir, may I have another?

I've been distracted the last couple of days by some important -- though, as it turned out, utterly depressing -- business up in the Bronx. So I'm late getting to the news that the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad (not to mention repulsive and Stalinist) National Academy Museum, having been duly punished, and having publicly repented for its sins ("Never again," says the museum's director), has had the sanctions against it lifted by the AAMD. "On Oct. 4 the [AAMD's] board voted unanimously to suspend its sanctions in recognition of the academy’s actions over the last 20 months toward better financial planning and management."

Its horrible sin, you may recall, was selling a couple of works (they still have 7,000 others!), to keep from having to close its doors. The scoundrels!

This was a horrible sin because, although it may seem that museums own the works of art in their collections, the works are actually "held in trust" for the public and so cannot be sold under any circumstances. Never never never. Unless of course the museum wants to use the proceeds to acquire other, different works of art, or even just put them in an account labeled Acquisition Fund and let them sit there, in which case the discarded works are somehow no longer held in the public trust -- go mind your own damn business, public! -- and can be freely sold. It's a funny kind of public trust, you see. Don't ask so many questions. Move along or we will sanction you.

Judith Dobrzynski thinks the outcome is "fair," but reiterates her (repulsive Stalinist) view that "there ought to be a process through which museums in true danger of closing, which have exhausted all other possibilities, might petition a state attorney general or an AAMD-sanctioned arbiter or some other adjudicator for permission to deaccession some works to raise money to remain open." The Art Market Monitor notes the New York Times's "odd obsession with the State legislature’s attempts to make law out of the [AAMD's] sanctions against selling works for operating expenses," and says the National Academy "is now only on double secret probation."

Barnes Update

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Stephan Salisbury tells us that construction of the new Barnes museum is "proceeding at a rapid clip."

I always appreciate his non-melodramatic way of describing the move:

"Wealthy collector Albert C. Barnes installed the work in the Merion gallery almost a century ago and stipulated that it could not be moved. But the Merion gallery was sinking into penury in the 1990s and the board of directors eventually saw no way of continuing as an independent institution if a move did not take place. Many former students of the Barnes ... opposed any move, as did numerous denizens of the art world and Merion residents. But Montgomery County Orphan's Court finally approved the plan in 2004."

Sinking into penury . . . board decided a move was necessary . . . many opposed . . . Court approval. That's one way to say what happened. On the other hand: Theft!!! Conspiracy!!! Eleventy!!$!?!

"He eventually confessed . . ."

". . . saying his motivation for the theft was to exact revenge against the university for his perceived mistreatment while an employee there."

The former director of LIU's Hillwood Museum was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing Egyptian artifacts from the museum. NY Post here. Background here.

"A chorus of confusion"

Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, was on the Brian Lehrer show last week, trying to clear up the confusion around the expiration of the Regents' "emergency regulations," which press reports are incorrectly characterizing as now allowing museums to use sales proceeds to cover operating expenses. (The show's site, in describing her segment, says she "talks about the Board of Regents' decision to allow the ban on 'deaccessioning' ... to expire today, in order to help museums to cover their operating expenses.") Tisch says, at around the four minute mark:

"The emergency regulation is what is expiring on October 8, reverting back to the old regulation. And in that old regulation, there is a clear prohibition against selling art for any reason other than to acquire, to preserve, or to protect your collection. And that will absolutely be in place, that does not change."

She's right about that.

"An eclectic reader's dream" (UPDATED)

A nice review for Noah Charney's "Stealing the Mystic Lamb" in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Well-written and thorough, this book reminds us of the influence and fragility of art, our veniality and heroism, and the delights found in both the beautiful and the strange."

UPDATE: And here's an interview with Charney on the Leonard Lopate show.

"I was painting with watercolors on my own store-bought paper that I had taped to a temporary wall surrounding a construction site."

Artist Julie Torres is arrested on graffiti charges.

Estate Tax Insanity

Professor Bainbridge has the latest.

"Because of the sharing arrangement, more people in the South can enjoy and study the Stieglitz Collection, which was the donor’s intent"

I'm a bit late getting to this, but Fisk has submitted a revised version of its agreement with the Crystal Bridges Museum, to address some concerns the court had with an earlier version. As the NYT reports, "the university, which has longstanding financial difficulties, is seeking to share ownership of the collection with [Crystal Bridges]."

Fisk president Hazel O'Leary is quoted as saying: "In the 21st century, museums have adopted the practice of sharing artwork to reduce the cost of acquisition and to ensure that a broader segment of the population can view and study collections."

(Or, put another way: Besides sharing the financial burden, having a second venue is fair to the art and to the artists, who get more visibility.)

You can read Fisk's latest court filing here. On the Tennessee Attorney General's proposal (that the collection be given to Nashville's Frist Center), it says:

"[The AG's proposal] would guarantee only one thing: that the Collection would never again be displayed at Fisk. This would contravene the one aspect of O'Keeffe's intent that no party can dispute: that O'Keeffe chose Fisk to display the Collection. There is only one proposal on the table that provides for Fisk to continue to display the Collection. In fashioning cy pres relief, Fisk asks the Court to consider the stark difference between 50% of the time and never again" (my emphasis).

I made a similar point here. How anyone can be certain (to the point of being, as usual, outrageously outraged) that the AG plan is closer to O'Keeffe's intent than the Crystal Bridges sharing arrangement is, is beyond me. Consider the stark difference between 50% of the time and never again.

Finally, the AAMD jumps into the fray, with a letter to Fisk that seems to miss the point entirely. The letter is filled with the usual cliches about the public trust and works of art not being "fungible assets" (except when they are sold to raise money to buy more art, when they magically become the very definition of fungible assets!) and on and on. They "sympathize" with the financial "challenges" Fisk faces (recall that the court recently found that Fisk was "on the brink of closing" -- I guess you could call that a "challenge"), but they have come to inform us that the collection's "greatest value is as a tool for learning and teaching." Ah, so that's its greatest value. I bet Hazel O'Leary and the others at Fisk had never thought of that. So good that the AAMD roused itself, after five years of litigation, to clear that up. I'm sure Fisk will withdraw the lawsuit and call the whole thing off straight away.

While we wait for that to happen, I have the following question. If the collection's greatest value is as a tool for learning and teaching, why can't that value be realized at Crystal Bridges (or more precisely: half the time at Crystal Bridges and half the time at Fisk)? Won't there actually be more learning and teaching going on under the proposed sharing arrangement than there is now? Doesn't the Crystal Bridges plan greatly increase the number of people who can learn from the collection?

And what about the $30 million Fisk will receive? How much learning and teaching will that support? Does that not factor in at all?

I think the AAMD would have been better off staying out of this one.

"At what point did acquiring performance art switch from owning objects associated with the actions, such as videos and photographs . . ."

" . . . to possessing the 'idea' behind the piece?"

The Financial Times on the market for performance art. Tino Sehgal gets a mention:

"Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal has evidently turned collecting criteria on their heads. He sells his performance art pieces by means of verbal transactions in the presence of a lawyer with no written contract. Instructions on how to re-enact his works are delivered literally by word-of-mouth, with collectors under strict orders never to photograph or video his 'constructed situations'. Yet they sell in editions of four to six for $85,000 to $145,000 each, according to The Art Newspaper."

Linkage (catch-up edition)

• Some Friedmanesque Themes in the Arts.
• Lawsuit over Calder mobile in Chicago.
• An interview with Noah Charney (who has a new book out).
• Has street art sold out?

Prison Sentences in Egyptian Van Gogh Theft

But not for the thieves:

"Eleven employees of Egypt’s cultural ministry were sentenced to three years in prison for negligence that led to the theft of a valuable van Gogh painting from a Giza museum in August, Reuters reported. Among those employees whose sentences were announced Tuesday was Mohsen Shaalan, a deputy culture minister who heads the fine arts division of the ministry."

"The whole game of finding support just started to seem so childish. So I decided to grow up and became a marijuana farmer."

The NYT's Randy Kennedy reports on a California art foundation that plans to support its activities through the sale of (medical) marijuana. The Nonprofit Law Prof Blog notes that the "article mentions drug-crime concerns as a possible problem, but does not talk about whether the pot-growing operation will generate unrelated business taxable income" (on which see here).

"It seems to me that museums, whether public or private, ought to take a stand against thuggery, and ought not surrender to the thugs’ demands"

I mentioned last week the story of a woman who was arrested for destroying an artwork at a Colorado museum "that some observers say depicts Jesus engaged in a sex act."

Now comes news that the museum will not re-hang the work, citing safety concerns. Eugene Volokh is disappointed -- "behavior that is rewarded is repeated, and I would hope that museums would see the costs of providing further encouragement to those who would vandalize museums (or for that matter threaten to vandalize them) -- and adds this bit of constitutional commentary:

"[T]he Establishment Clause doesn’t prohibit the display of allegedly blasphemous or antireligious works in government museums, just like it doesn’t prohibit the display of pro-religious works in government museums. See, e.g., the various opinions’ mentions of museums in County of Allegheny v. ACLU (as well as Justice O’Connor’s dissent in Van Orden v. Texas). An entire government museum devoted to Christian painting or to anti-Christian blasphemy might violate the Establishment Clause 'endorsement test' (which still seems to be part of the law). But occasional artworks in such museums would not be seen as sending a message of government endorsement of religion."

"NY State's version of UPMIFA is 'more donor-favorable than perhaps any in the nation'"

Cristina del Rivero has a concise summary of the new law.

"For several days the museum has faced protests for displaying the work"

The NYT: "Woman Arrested in Colorado After Destroying Artwork."

Critics Say A Lot Of Things

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a New York Times article that misleadingly suggested that the expiration of New York's "emergency" deaccessioning regulations would allow museums "to sell art to cover operating costs." As I said then: "The expiration of the emergency regulations just means that we go back to the existing, non-emergency regulations, which also prohibit the sale of art to cover operating expenses."

See also here and here.

The Times is back today, ratcheting up the confusion, with a story on the front page of the Arts section headlined "Criticism Flies After State Eases Ban on Art Sales." It begins: "When the New York State Board of Regents met last month to consider making permanent a set of temporary regulations that bar the sale of artwork by museums to cover expenses, approval was widely considered a fait accompli." And it goes on to give the distinct impression that, by letting the regulations expire, "such sales" -- i.e., sales "to cover expenses" -- are now allowed.

Again: that is not true.

The existing rules will still prohibit art sales to cover operating expenses.

You know how I know that?

I read it in the New York Times.

In the same article, but on the jump page, in the twenty-first paragraph (of a 24-paragraph story), we are finally told the following:

"In the absence of the regulations the Regents policy will revert back to a set of guidelines on the books since 1971 and amended in 1998 to address collections management, including deaccessioning. While the guidelines prohibit the use of proceeds from art sales for operating expenses . . . ."

Let me stop there for a moment. We are going back to guidelines that have been in place since 1971. Those guidelines PROHIBIT THE USE OF PROCEEDS FROM ART SALES FOR OPERATING EXPENSES.

I think it's probably safe to conclude, based on that, that proceeds from art sales may not be used for operating expenses. Wouldn't you?

So what is going on here? What is the source of the concern? What justifies two major stories on this in the New York Times in the span of three weeks? Let's go back to paragraph 21 again:

"While the guidelines prohibit the use of proceeds from art sales for operating expenses, they also require that such sales be consistent with an institution’s 'corporate purposes and mission statement.' This leaves open the possibility, critics said, that museums could amend their mission statements to suit their deaccessioning interests or argue that selling artworks fit within their 'corporate purposes.'"

I dealt with this supposed "loophole," which "critics say" opens the possibility for sales to cover operating expenses, here. There is no such loophole. Look at the very language of the Times article: the guidelines prohibit use of sales proceeds for operating expenses and they also must be consistent with the museum's mission statement. Get it? It's a two-part test. If you want to sell art,

(1) you can't use the proceeds for operating expenses

AND

(2) the sale must be consistent with your mission statement.

You can change your mission statement all you want -- yet that only helps with condition (2). No matter what, you still can't use the proceeds for operating expenses.

This is, or should be, a non-story.

"How could Jefferson sell its heritage?"

The Cherry Hill Courier Post has more on the tragic deaccessioning of The Gross Clinic: "Dr. Warren V. Harrer of Haddonfield, ... a Jefferson alumnus, admitted that he was 'initially sad since "The Gross Clinic" has been an integral part of Jefferson lore.'"

But now he is "delighted that the painting is taken care of and seen by a much larger audience."

What's more, "he is pleased that the University is using the funds to generate medical education."

Why, it's almost as if the sale was a good thing!

More on this tragedy, if you can stand to read it, here and here.

Pebble Beach Update

"Two men who said they had a world-class collection of artwork stolen from their rented Pebble Beach home are accusing the Monterey County Sheriff's Office and its chief spokesman in a new lawsuit of publicly defaming them."

Comeback

The "Zaretskians" on the LA MOCA board seem to have gotten their act together: "The Museum of Contemporary Art announced Thursday that it finished its fiscal year with a $5.5-million surplus and has used most of it to continue replenishing the endowment it had illegally raided during nearly a decade of overspending. . . . The decision to put $4 million of the surplus into the endowment brings the fund to $18.5 million, less than two years after the museum's meltdown, coupled with the 2008 stock market collapse, had reduced it to $5 million."

"Copyright law needs to be simpler, understandable, and more flexible to change with the times"

The report of the Copyright Principles Project, led by Berkeley's Pamela Samuelson, is out. Press release here. You can read the full report here. Mike Madison comments here. Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento here.

"Art College President's Compensation Reached Nearly $2-Million in 2008"

The Chronicle of Higher Ed: "The college paid Ms. Wallace’s current husband, Glenn E. Wallace, $289,235 in 2008 for his role as senior vice president for college resources. Also on the payroll was her son John Paul Rowan ($233,843 for consulting; he is now a vice president who oversees the college’s Hong Kong campus), daughter Marisa Rowan ($101,493; director of the equestrian programs), daughter-in-law Elizabeth Rowan ($85,494; director of external relations at the Hong Kong campus), and mother, May L. Poetter, a member of the Board of Trustees, who earned $61,767 in consulting fees."

"The distinction between 'works of art' and signs that somehow are not artistic strikes me as unconstitutionally vague"

Eugene Volokh on sign regulation in St. Louis.

They Should Be Kicked Out of the AAM Immediately!

"A museum of modern art in Germany said Wednesday it would sell its own art collection to avert closure."

We Demand You Not Close the Museum You Are Not Closing

Two new exhibits open at the Rose next week. Of course the Rose is not a real museum because Brandeis once considered selling some of its work and now they are exploring loaning out some of the collection for profit. When you do that, you are no longer a museum. Right?

Linkage

• Daniel Grant on what happens to confiscated fakes.
• The NYT on when it's legal to photograph art.
• The Art Market Monitor on bad behavior in the art market.

Not So Much

Lee Rosenbaum frets that New York's adoption of UPMIFA encourages "disregard of donor intent," but as the folks at Nixon Peabody point out, "New York's statute is more donor-favorable than perhaps any in the nation, with special notice requirements on court-ordered and other modifications of restrictions, and donor consent to the release or modification of certain restrictions contained in a gift instrument. Charities are advised to be aware of this new, expanded role for donors in the life of their institutions" (my emphases).

Inside Job?

NYT: "Egypt’s minister of the interior told the official MENA news agency that a museum employee was most likely responsible for the theft of a valuable van Gogh painting from a museum in Giza last month."

Derek Fincham: "This may explain why there was such a strong reaction to the arrest and a crack down on the museum's own staff and security personnel, or it may be an attempt to find a scapegoat."

Protect Yourself

New York Times "Wealth Matters" columnist Paul Sullivan had a piece on buying art this weekend. It's mostly common sense stuff (it's "not always the case" that art increases in value), but Aris title insurance makes an appearance. Sullivan says they charge a "one-time premium" ranging "from 1 to 5 percent of the value," then adds:

"The reality, though, is that title insurance is still not broadly accepted. 'It hasn’t been purchased on a widespread basis,' said Paul Funk, executive managing director at Frank Crystal & Company, an insurance brokerage."

More on Aris here, here, and here.

On loopholes

I wanted to address a point Assemblyman Brodsky made to Lee Rosenbaum regarding the expiration of the Board of Regents' "emergency" rules on deaccessioning:

"Another loophole, Brodsky asserted to me after he read this post, is that the old regs (under Paragraph 6-ii) did permit the use sale proceeds for operating expenses, if the institution first changed its corporate purpose so as not to include collecting the type of material to be sold."

He says "this had been cured" in the now expiring amendment to the regulations.

First of all: really? This is what we're worried about now? That museums are going to play games with their corporate purposes so they can dump their collections? Those devious museums, you never know what they'll do in their relentless drive to rid themselves of their art.

But second, I don't see the loophole at all. Take a look at the existing rules. The part about the corporate purpose is in Paragraph 6(ii). But look at Paragraph 6(vi). It says the institution shall "ensure that proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the institution's collection be restricted in a separate fund" and "in no event shall proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the collection be used for operating expenses." That's true no matter what your corporate purpose is. So where's the loophole?

Rose News

Geoff Edgers reports that "Brandeis University is launching a search for a new director at the Rose Art Museum, the latest step in an effort to move on from last year’s controversy over the campus museum."

He also says "Rose boosters" who are suing the university are "not impressed." One of them is quoted as objecting to the fact that Brandeis University's search committee for Brandeis University's art museum is made up of Brandeis University employees. Go figure.

Can you copyright the West Coast Offense?

Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento: "This is probably the smartest article I have read recently on copyright and creativity."

"However, the act does not appear to forbid building a garage that would block the mural from view"

An endangered mural in Portsmouth.

"Picasso shrugged: 'I often paint fakes'"

A koan about creativity, courtesy of Gretchen Rubin.

"Is there anyone out there who is involved with the nonprofit community that is awake!" (UPDATED)

The Planned Giving Blog reports that Gov. Patterson has signed UPMIFA into law in NY. For background, start here.

UPDATE: My friends at Simpson Thacher are wide awake. Everything you could possibly want to know about the new law is here.

"The Attorney General would like to correct that apparent miscommunication"

The Tennessee General has filed a Motion to Clarify the Court's latest ruling in the Fisk case. You can read the motion here. The subtext is: "Excuse me, Your Honor, am I crazy or did you just change your mind completely?"

As I explained last week, Judge Lyle ruled last month that, since O'Keeffe's intent in making the gift was to make the collection available to the people of Nashville and the South, the interests of Fisk were irrelevant, and she therefore invited the Attorney General to come up with a plan to keep the collection in Nashville.

She's now rejected that plan, ostensibly because it wasn't "permanent" enough (it provided for the works to go to Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts, but left open the possibility of their return to Fisk in the event it some day gets its financial house in order), but it was clear from the opinion that the real reason for the decision was that she had changed her mind about the relevance of Fisk's interests: "It would not be in keeping ... with the donor's intent," she wrote, "to keep the Collection in Nashville at the cost of sacrificing the existence of Fisk."

The AG's current motion argues against the stated reason for the decision:

"The Court in its ruling earlier this week rejected the Attorney General's proposal as a 'short-term solution' and a 'temporary fix.' The Attorney General would like to correct that apparent miscommunication. There is nothing 'short-term' or 'temporary' about the plan. It provides an appropriately funded and structured mechanism to support the full-time display and maintenance of the Stieglitz Collection in Nashville into the indefinite future. The only 'temporary' element of the arrangement is the appropriate suggestion that Fisk University should be able to resume custody and display of the art when it has the financial ability to do so. This does not make the proposal a temporary fix; rather, it recognizes Fisk's historic connection with the art and allows the proposal to adhere even more closely to Ms. O'Keeffe's charitable intent."

(Lee Rosenbaum made a similar argument last week: "To my mind, the flaw in the court's logic is that the AG's plan WOULD keep the collection in Nashville full-time. The only thing temporary about the arrangement would be the artworks' sojourn at the Frist, which would display and maintain the collection until Fisk could resume custodianship.")

But, again, the real issue is that somewhere in between the decision asking the AG to submit his Nashville-only plan and the decision rejecting that plan, Judge Lyle seems to have become convinced that the interests of Fisk do matter. Once you grant that, then the AG's proposal -- which runs the risk of "sacrificing the existence of Fisk University" -- isn't going to be good enough, whether or not you see it as "temporary."

More Deaccession Confusion

AAM president Ford Bell is under the mistaken impression that the NY Board of Regents has decided to "permit museums to sell objects in their collections to cover operating costs."

As I explained yesterday, that's not true at all. The existing Board of Regents regulations (which will continue to govern after the emergency regulations expire) provide:

"In no event shall proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the collection be used for operating expenses or for any purposes other than the acquisition, preservation, protection or care of collections."

That happens to be exactly the same as the AAM's position on deaccessioning. Bell needn't be alarmed.

Lee Rosenbaum accepts her share of blame for sowing confusion about this.

Fiskophrenia

I had a chance to read Judge Lyle's decision rejecting the AG's plan for the Fisk art, and what it comes down to is she seems to have remembered that the gift to Fisk may have been intended to benefit Fisk.

Recall that, in her prior decision, she said the Court of Appeals "made no finding of a dual intention by Mrs. O'Keeffe that includes perpetuating the existence of Fisk." Her intent was solely to "enable the public -- in Nashville and the South -- to have the opportunity to study the Collection in order to promote the general study of art."

As I said at the time, this made no sense: "In other words, the intent behind the gift to Fisk was not to benefit Fisk; it was simply -- and only -- to make the Collection available to the public in Nashville and the (true) South."

Judge Lyle now seems to agree. The new decision says "one could argue that by saying the donor's intent was to enable Nashville to have access to the Collection, the Court of Appeals implicitly ruled that was the donor's exclusive intention. By not mentioning Fisk, the Court of Appeals' decision could be read to imply that Fisk, the institution, should not be considered in a plan for the Collection. The Court rejects that argument." She notes that the Collection was placed "deliberate[ly]" with Fisk: O'Keeffe's "connection to Nashville" was Fisk. "It would not be in keeping, then, with the donor's intent to keep the Collection in Nashville at the cost of sacrificing the existence of Fisk University." When O'Keeffe made her gift, "Fisk was not on the brink of closing." "Having the Collection in Nashville only half of the time and reducing Fisk's ownership to a half is not a perfect solution but it does keep Fisk afloat, thereby maintaining and holding true to the law's recognition of the donor's deliberate selection of Fisk for the art."

Relax

I think there was a lot of confusion out there today about the news that the New York State Board of Regents is going to let its "emergency" deaccessioning regulations expire. The New York Times headline was "Board of Regents Ending Injunction Against Museums' Art Sales." It called the move a "surprise development in the battle over whether museums should be allowed to sell art to cover operating costs." The Wall Street Journal's headline was "Museums Can Sell Off Art Again" and its lead was: "The state will allow emergency regulations that prohibited cash-strapped museums from selling their artworks to cover expenses to expire" -- clearly implying that now cash-strapped museums can sell art "to cover expenses." Artinfo.com reported that the Regents made the "surprise decision" to let the rules "prohibiting the practice" of "sell[ing] art to cover operating expenses" -- "long considered sacrosanct" -- expire. And Assemblyman Brodsky -- of the defunct Brodsky Bill -- was quoted as saying "this is the precursor of the massive transfer of art held in the public trust into private hands."

I think they have it all wrong. The expiration of the emergency regulations just means that we go back to the existing, non-emergency regulations, which also prohibit the sale of art to cover operating expenses. The existing rules -- which apply to all museums chartered after 1889 -- essentially make the AAMD/AAM deaccessioning rules the law of New York State. The emergency regulations were even stricter, but if you're okay with the AAMD rule, you should be fine with the current regulations. Museums still won't be able to use sales proceeds for operating expenses. The Deaccession Police can rest easy.

They Found the Missing Corot

"Then, on Sunday, the artwork suddenly materialized — under the arm of a Fifth Avenue doorman, who took it to a police station house on the Upper East Side."

Hilarious (UPDATED)

The Judge has rejected the Attorney General's plan for the Fisk artworks: "The best the attorney general has been able to do is to propose a short-term solution. A temporary fix, however, is insufficient, the court concludes. The parties have been in court long enough. Finality and certainty is needed."

Incredible.

Remember: in her ruling last month, Judge Lyle asked the AG to propose "a sharing arrangement in Nashville or ... an institution in Nashville capable and willing to permanently house and maintain the Collection to replace Fisk." He seemed to have done that: the work would stay in Nashville, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts . But, in an apparent effort to be fair to Fisk, he included a proviso that, if Fisk manages to fix its financial situation, they could have the works back. But now it seems that that proviso ruined the proposal by making it insufficiently final! (So why not just drop the proviso and say the works go to the Frist Center -- finally and permanently?)

In any case, it seems it's back to the Crystal Bridges deal . . . and a little joy in Fiskville.

UPDATE: Judge Lyle's latest decision is here. Haven't had a chance to read it myself, but will try to soon.

A couple more notes on Fisk and donor intent

Two additional points on the situation at Fisk:

1. Keep in mind that when we talk about O'Keeffe's intent here, we're all really just guessing. O'Keeffe did not say -- though she certainly could have -- what she wanted to see happen to the collection in the event Fisk could no longer properly care for it. So we have in front of us two options --

A. The works go to the Frist Center in Nashville on a year-round basis (but with the potential to come back to Fisk if their financial fortunes turn around);

and

B. The works are shared with Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, so that they remain at Fisk half the time --

and I don't know how we would even begin to figure out which one is "closer" to O'Keeffe's intent. How do we make that determination? One has the works staying with Fisk half the time -- so maybe we score that a 50% on the Intent Scale. The other has the works leaving Fisk . . . but with the possibility that they will come back some time in the future. What kind of Intent Scale score does that get? I suppose it depends, in part, on how likely we think it is that the works will actually come back. But again, this whole idea of deciding which of the two alternatives is "closer" to O'Keeffe's original intent just seems like an impossible task to me (and I've deliberately left to the side the fact that one of the two alternatives is worth $30 million to Fisk and the other is worth nothing).

2. Though we can't be sure what O'Keeffe would have wanted, there is a kind of "successor" to O'Keeffe that is still around today: the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Before the Frist proposal ... before the Crystal Bridges deal ... the O'Keeffe Museum had struck a deal with Fisk that would have allowed Fisk to sell one (or, depending on how you look at it, two) of the works in the collection but hold onto the other 99. (The court rejected the deal, three years ago now -- on the grounds that the Crystal Bridges offer was better (!) -- and then the O'Keeffe Museum was pushed out of the case on standing grounds. Where's Argott when you need him?) But, as I said at the time:

"If this really is a matter of donor intent, then why couldn't the museum agree to waive this or that condition of the gift? I mean, if O'Keeffe were alive, and she had worked out a deal with Fisk like the one the museum, as her successor, worked out in the fall -- what sense would it make to say that deal was contrary to O'Keeffe's intent? She's the one making the deal. And if that's right, why should it be any different for the O'Keeffe Museum as her successor?"

Isn't that deal between Fisk and the O'Keeffe Museum (the entity whose purpose in life is to perpetuate her artistic legacy) "closer" to O'Keeffe's intent than either the Frist or Crystal Bridges alternatives?

Is it too late to go back to that option? We all want to make sure the donor's intent is honored to the greatest extent possible, don't we?

Maybe someone can make "The Art of the Steal Part 2"

Fisk students held a vigil tonight in protest of the Tennessee Attorney General's plan to transfer the Stieglitz collection to the Frist Center (without any compensation flowing to Fisk).

Fisk President Hazel O’Leary says:

"This proposal was developed without an invitation to or participation by Fisk from the Attorney General, the Frist Center, MDHA, or the Tennessee Arts Commission. This so-called partnership between the Frist Center, the State and the Metropolitan Government is nothing more than the display of raw power in an undisguised attempt to steal this art from its rightful owner. We will use every ounce of our energy to oppose this proposal."

Where's the outrage? At least in the Barnes case the Foundation's own board voted to move the collection (and, of course, the Barnes continues to own the work; it just has a new home). Somehow that added up to theft to a lot of people. But here the work is just being taken from Fisk, against its will, in the name of some imagined "donor intent" (the notion that it more closely approximates O'Keeffe's 60-year old intent that the works go to the Frist Center year-round than be kept at Fisk half the time). I don't get it.

"The ex-con who allegedly lost a $1 million painting in a drunken haze was being sued for $800,000 at the time the artwork went missing"

Latest on the Corot caper, from the NY Post.

"The state of Tennessee and Metropolitan Nashville have decided that the art is more important than Fisk"

"Nashville has a simple choice to make, and that is whether it is better to keep the art in Nashville full time and have Fisk close or keep the art in Nashville half the time and have Fisk survive."

"The Collection should return to the Fisk campus when the University is once again financially able to display and maintain the art"

Today was the deadline for the Tennessee Attorney General to come up with a plan to keep the Steiglitz Collection in Nashville, and come up with such a plan he has:

"Under Cooper's plan, the collection would be displayed under contract at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts. It would be accessible free of charge every day of the week, and would continue to be called the 'Alfred Stieglitz Collection at Fisk University.' The collection would be returned to the school once it can afford to care for and display the art there."

Press release from the AG's office here.

This of course does nothing (or very little) for Fisk, but, as we all know, benefitting Fisk was not part of O'Keeffe's intent when she gave the Collection to Fisk. She could care less about Fisk! In fact she hated Fisk! What she really cared about was the People of Nashville. If Fisk goes under, hey, stuff happens. Not our problem. Our problem -- as Lovers of Art -- is to see to it that the donor's intent is always satisfied. And obviously in this case O'Keeffe would have preferred that the works be shown at the Frist Center than have Fisk share the Collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum. So this is a Good Day For Art: the works will be leaving Fisk, but instead of going to Museum A, they will be going to Museum B, which is much better. Obviously.

Arrest in Corot Case

The New York Times:

"The case of a portrait by a 19th-century French painter that supposedly disappeared after a night of drinking by the man who had it took another twist on Thursday.

"Thomas A. Doyle was arrested and charged with defrauding an investor in the painting by lying about its cost, according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

"Mr. Doyle, who had previously been convicted of art fraud, arranged to buy the painting, 'Portrait of a Girl' by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, from an art gallery in New York for $775,000, but told the investor, who is from Japan, and a broker from Vancouver, British Columbia, that the purchase price was $1.1 million, according to the complaint.

"So the Japanese investor, who was buying an 80 percent stake in the painting, sent him $880,000 for the transaction, which was completed in June, the complaint said. Mr. Doyle also misled the investor and the broker by telling them he had a buyer for the painting lined up to pay $1.7 million, the complaint said. The painting was actually appraised at $500,000 to $700,000, the complaint said, and there was no ready buyer."

The Art Market Monitor notes an oddity in the story.

Jessica Pressler: "Ha, yeah, this con artist has sure painted himself into a corner."

British Artists Protest Possible Cut in Arts Funding

The New York Times: "Britain’s coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has proposed a budget that could cut arts spending by as much as 25 percent, as the government seeks to reduce its substantial budget deficit."

Relatedly, Michael Rushton: how do we figure out the right level of public funding for the arts?

Linkage

• Tattoos as speech.
• More on regulating the art market. (Earlier post here.)
• Update on Dreier's art. (Earlier post here.)

"If convicted the suspects could face three years in prison"

The AP: "Eleven culture officials from Egypt's government have been formally charged in last month's theft of a Vincent van Gogh painting from a Cairo museum."

Broke

I mentioned recently William Cohan's piece on regulation and the art market. Felix Salmon thinks the idea of regulating the art market -- through for example the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- is "a dreadful idea." He thinks "the art market is broken," and better not to do anything to disguise that fact. The Art Market Monitor doesn't buy the case for broken-ness: "Works of art are being distributed and re-distributed throughout the world using the fairly efficient method of market pricing."

Rainy day funds

The Seattle Art Museum is seeking court approval to borrow $10 million from its endowment fund. Story here. Judith Dobrzynski is against endowment spending. The museum says it already "has had to reduce staff and curtail hours" and has "very substantial assets that it operates for public benefit, including the Olympic Sculpture Park, which generates no revenue."

"Even if it’s real, who owns that wall, and can I please take a chunk of it away?"

The LRB's Jenny Diski on the difficulties Banksy poses for collectors.

Was it O'Keeffe's intent that the collection be seen be fewer than 7 people a day?

Because, according to the NPR story I linked to yesterday, that's how many visitors it gets.

Drunken Lawsuit Update

The New York Times:

"For those following the strange case of the lost million-dollar painting, here is an update.

"The missing artwork? Still missing.

"The lawsuit filed against the man accused of losing the painting after having had one drink too many? Dropped, but apparently being resurrected.

"The painting’s co-owner whose criminal background as an art thief was unknown to even his own lawyer? A little haggard and unrepentant."

"That would leave Fisk not only with no art-sale revenue but also with no Stieglitz art collection"

NPR on the Fisk-O'Keeffe saga.

Linkage

• Banksy forgers sentenced.
• Yale art theft sentence.
• TRO granted in lawsuit challenging new rules limiting art sales in NYC parks.
• Fleeing the sinking "Ansel Adams" ship.
• Brancusi battle.
• Another Richard Love lawsuit. (Related post here.)
• Another museum in trouble.
• The impact of state laws that impede gifts to charity at death.
• The French vulnerability to art theft.
• An ACLU for those charged with graffiti-related crimes.
• Italian forgery ring.
• Artist sues Ivan Reitman's Toronto condo development.
• Australian photographers protest permit fees.
• Does copyright law impede growth?

"The legislation grew out of cases in which time became a factor in litigation involving art looted by the Nazis"

The NYT's Kate Taylor reports that "California lawmakers gave final approval Monday night to a bill that would extend the time period in which people can sue museums to try to recover what they believe are stolen works of art. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had not decided whether to sign the bill."

Background here.

"It’s a very drastic turn of events"

Ann Liv Young is back at P.S. 1. (Background here.)

Here's a new one (UPDATED 2X)

The AP: "A man entrusted with helping to sell a $1.3 million painting said it disappeared while he was in a drunken haze, according to a lawsuit filed by a co-owner of the canvas."

UPDATE: Jessica Pressler says: "But probably it'll all work out, now that the value of the painting has been publicized and the cabbie who has the thing in his trunk knows how important it is."

UPDATE 2: The lawsuit has been withdrawn: "[C]o-owner Kristyn Trudgeon is withdrawing her suit against James Carl Haggerty after learning her co-owner - and the person who hired Haggerty - is a convicted art scammer." Josh Duboff: "If there’s anything to be learned from all this, it's that if you hear a tale involving misplaced million-dollar paintings and wasted people, it's a good bet there's more to the story. That, and it's probably a good idea to Google your business partners before going in on famous paintings with them."

"Why on earth would anyone want to change that?"

Copyright and fashion are back in the news again. Sen. Schumer has introduced a bill that would extend copyright laws to the fashion industry for the first time. Lawprofs Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman are against it:

"American law does not prohibit copying fashion designs. Paradoxically, the payoff from free copying has been enormous. Copying helps set trends (you can’t know it’s a trend until it’s been copied) and then helps destroy them – once a design has been widely copied, the fashion-forward hop on to the next new thing. This is the familiar fashion cycle. What’s less obvious is that the absence of copyright makes the process possible. The fashion cycle turns faster, and the industry gets richer – and creates new designs more frequently."

Writing in Newsweek, Ezra Klein takes a similar line:

"But perhaps the strongest argument is that America’s apparel industry doesn’t seem broken—so why try and fix it? 'America is the world fashion leader,' said Steven Kolb, director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the lead trade group in support of the Schumer bill, 'and yet it is basically the only industrialized country that does not provide protection for fashion design.' Run that by me one more time? We’re the world leader in fashion, so we should change our policy to mimic our lagging competitors?"

Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento does not take a similar line.

Related post here.

Van Gogh Theft Update

The investigation into the van Gogh stolen from a museum in Egypt continues. Last week, an Egyptian billionaire offered a 1-million Egyptian pound reward for information leading to its return. Turbo Paul was not impressed -- 1-million Egyptian pounds is about $175,000. Next, Egypt’s minister of culture was questioned by prosecutors for more than three hours on Sunday night. And Derek Fincham notes that "perhaps most troubling of all were the breakdowns in technology at the museum."

"Lending for compensation is not unheard of"

What repulsive Stalinist said that?

The AAM's Dewey Blanton, who tells the Brandeis Hoot that "museums usually lend their pieces for only the charge of shipping and insurance of the pieces, but that in tough economic times lending for compensation 'can be a win-win situation for the lender, who gets money, and the borrower, who gets access to new art'" (my emphasis).

Oh the shame!

The Hoot also reports that a Dec. 12 trial date has been set in the Rose lawsuit.

"The canvas now has far more commodious digs—almost its own mini-chapel"

More on the tragic deaccessioning of "The Gross Clinic," which "until a few years ago was off-the-beaten trail at the Jefferson Memorial Hospital."

"The sharing proposal, increasingly popular with galleries and museums across the globe, ..."

". . . is an innovative arrangement that is clearly in the best interest of Fisk, Tennessee, and the South."

Fisk issues a statement. The problem is, the Court has ruled the interests of Fisk don't matter at all.

Proposed New CA Statute of Limitations for Stolen Art Claims

In my Journal of Art Crime column last year, I wrote about the Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum case, in which the Ninth Circuit struck down the California legislature's attempt to extend the statute of limitations on Holocaust-era art claims on the ground that it represented an impermissible infringement of the federal government’s power "to make and resolve war." I noted then that "the implication of the decision seems to be that, if California had extended its statute of limitations for all stolen property claims (or for all claims of stolen artwork in particular), then the claim would have survived."

Now comes news that they're doing just that. Assembly Bill 2765, currently making its way through the California Legislature, would extend the statute of limitations for stolen art claims -- all stolen art claims -- against museums, auctioneers, and galleries. A legislative analysis of the bill is here. I can't find any commentary online, but Simon Frankel and John Freed of Covington & Burling have a piece entitled "Statute Without Limits?" Here's how they summarize the bill:

"AB 2765 would dramatically expand the time in which claims to 'works of fine art' can be brought against museums, auctioneers, and galleries. In its current form, a party who claims to have lost such a work through theft would have six years from actual discovery of the whereabouts of the work to institute a claim. The bill also specifies that 'actual notice' requires knowledge of the identity and whereabouts of the work, and '[f]acts sufficient for the claimant to reasonably believe that he or she has a claim' to the work. So the statutory period would only begin to run when the claimant actually knew all this information, not when he or she could have learned such through reasonable diligence."

And they conclude:

"Ultimately, AB 2765 is a legislative solution in search of a problem. It will likely lead to more costly and drawn out lawsuits over works of art now held in museums, which will subject such taxpayer - and donor - funded institutions to more burdensome litigation."

Further on Fisk (UPDATED)

Following up on my post last night, a couple of additional points re Fisk:

1. For those rooting against the Crystal Bridges deal (which would bring Fisk $30 million in exchange for a half-interest in the collection), here's what the Court found regarding Fisk's financial condition:

"[T]wo degree programs [--] dramatic speech and dance, and philosophy and religion [--] have been eliminated. In the last two years, every faculty member has taken a 5% salary reduction, and Administration salary cuts range from 7 to 15%. Fisk has suspended its contributions to pension plans and vacation accrual. All of the buildings are mortgaged. Unrestricted endowment is zero dollars. Endowment has declined from $4.27 million to $3.7 million. Accounts payable total $2 million. Fisk ... regularly runs a two million dollar deficit annually."

In short, the university is "on the brink of closing."

But who cares, right? The important thing is that the intent behind O'Keeffe's 60-year old gift -- or, more precisely, what we think her intent was; we actually have no idea what she would have wanted had she known Fisk would end up in the condition it's in -- is preserved. Obviously she would have preferred a year-round "condominium" arrangement at the Frist Center to a collection-sharing agreement with Crystal Bridges that would allow the works to remain at Fisk for six months out of every year. Who could doubt it? We're so certain that was her intention that we're prepared to let Fisk go under as a consequence.

2. The headlines reporting the decision tend to say the Court "rejected" the Crystal Bridges deal. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.) It's worth noting that that isn't entirely true. It rejected it for now, but if the Tennessee Attorney General doesn't present a better proposal (in just 20 days), then "the only available alternative is for [the] Court to attempt to rework the Crystal Bridges Agreement to more closely approximate Ms. O'Keeffe's intent." As I said last night, I fully expect the AG to come up with a plan that works (it's a pretty low bar), but, if there's one thing this case has taught us, it's that you never know.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Lee Rosenbaum.

"Then he lowers the boom: little things don't seem quite right, and Biro is revealed as a con man"

Still more praise for David Grann's New Yorker article on Peter Paul Biro.

Is the art market unregulated?

Writing at the NY Times Opinionator Blog, William Cohan says yes, it's "utterly unregulated." The Art Market Monitor begs to differ:

"This handy art world cliche is silly. The art world is governed by all the rules and regulations of the commercial code. . . . The authenticity of art is regulated by a vast network of scholars and museums. The case of the Norsigian negatives is a terrific example of how well the system works with a hive of experts appearing instantaneously to dismantle claims and offer a convincing alternative theory."

Speaking of the Norsigian negatives, the NYT reports today that "The Ansel Adams Publishing Trust, which controls the licensing rights to Adams’s work, filed a federal trademark infringement suit Monday in San Francisco as part of an effort to block the sale of prints by Rick Norsigian, a Fresno contractor who bought the negatives 10 years ago for $45. The suit argues that Mr. Norsigian and a consulting firm run by his lawyer, Arnold Peter, have 'acted knowingly, willfully and with malice' in marketing the negatives as Adams’s work."

Finally, in related, and breaking, news: Why You Can't Always Trust Art Dealers.

The Stolen Van Gogh

The latest on the Van Gogh stolen from a Cairo museum over the weekend is . . . it's still missing. There were some reports that it had been recovered, but they seem to have been "based on faulty information." A "top official in Egypt’s culture ministry" and "several" museum guards have been arrested. For more news and commentary, Art Theft Central is a good place to start ("Why are certain national collections not as well protected as others? Who, in addition to the thief, is responsible for the theft? Is the government at fault for failing to protect and secure the public's collections?"). Turbo Paul is worth following as well.

More Fisk Follies

So Judge Lyle issued her decision in the Fisk case on Friday. She resolved one of the two remaining issues in the case; the other she kicked down the road a bit.

First, some background. Last summer, the Tennessee Court of Appeals sent the case back to Judge Lyle with instructions to perform a two-step analysis:

First, to figure out whether "the change of circumstances subsequent to the gift [has] render[ed] literal compliance with the conditions [of the gift] impossible or impracticable."

And second, if the answer to the first question is yes, then "to fashion a form of relief that most closely approximates Ms. O'Keeffe's charitable intent."

In Friday's decision, Judge Lyle ruled that the answer to the first question was in fact yes: "It is impracticable for a struggling university on the brink of closing to literally comply with Ms. O'Keeffe's plan."

So we move on to the second question -- how best to approximate O'Keeffe's intent -- and here things get a little wacky again. The Court of Appeals had already defined what that intent was: i.e., "to make the Collection available to the public in Nashville and the South" (emphasis, as I said here, importantly in the original). I had interpreted this at the time to be a nod towards the pending Crystal Bridges deal. But Judge Lyle is here to inform us that, if you think about it, Arkansas isn't really part of the South:

"Through the testimony of sociologist Dr. Amey the Attorney General established that Bentonville, Arkansas, is 555 miles driving distance from Nashville. That is the same distance as it is from Nashville to Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. ... Nashville is more racially diverse and has a lower average household income [than Bentonville]. Using the U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the 'Southern' states, Nashville is closer to more Southern states than Bentonville."

With that out of the way, Judge Lyle invites the Tennessee Attorney General "to submit a proposal" (within 20 days) for "a sharing arrangement in Nashville or ... an institution in Nashville capable and willing to permanently house and maintain the Collection to replace Fisk." There's lots of talk in the decision about a "condominium" arrangement at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, but, presumably, any institution in Tennessee that steps forward and says "we'll take the work" will get it over the (non-Southern) Crystal Bridges Museum.

What's missing, of course, is any consideration of the interests of Fisk. The $30 million they would get for sending the works out of the South to Arkansas for six months each year is completely irrelevant because, as Judge Lyle states, the Court of Appeals "made no finding of a dual intention by Ms. O'Keeffe that includes perpetuating the existence of Fisk." In other words, the intent behind the gift to Fisk was not to benefit Fisk; it was simply -- and only -- to make the Collection available to the public in Nashville and the (true) South.

But, as the Charity Governance Blog's Jack Siegel says, this is ridiculous: "O'Keeffe must have believed the collection benefited Fisk and wanted those benefits to accrue to Fisk. ... We have no doubt that if she knew that the [sales proceeds] could save Fisk from closure, she would authorize the sale. ... We suspect that O'Keeffe will do a few spins in her grave if the collection is displayed in the Frist Center without any dollars accruing to Fisk."

As I've said before, I'm at a loss to understand why people would rather see Fisk hand over the entire collection to Museum A and get nothing back in return, than see it give up a half-interest in the collection to Museum B (or CB) in exchange for $30 million that it so desperately needs.

"Forget it, I'm done, they can have the image. I just want to get back to my life"

The big news in the Shepard Fairey lawsuit is that Mannie Garcia has dropped out of the case because it had "taken a toll on him personally and professionally." It's not a settlement: "the AP is pleased that Mr. Garcia voluntarily withdrew without any payment or consideration of any kind." More here from Photo District News. Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento comments here.

The NYT's Randy Kennedy also reports that the judge has set a March trial date in the remaining claims between Fairey and the AP.

I take a break from blogging for a couple of days ...

. . . and all hell breaks loose. A decision in the Fisk case. Big news in the Shepard Fairey lawsuit. A Van Gogh is stolen. More on all of these later in the day (I hope).

New Trial for Park West

The judge has thrown out the $500,000 jury verdict Fine Arts Registry got against Park West Galleries in April. The Detroit Free Press reports that the judge ruled that FAR "repeatedly violated his orders during a 5 1/2 -week trial ... by mentioning a supposed federal probe, critical newspaper articles and lawsuits by disgruntled customers." As I mentioned at the time of the verdict, Park West still has to deal with eight other lawsuits seeking more than $20 million in damages, most of which were consolidated into a multi-district federal lawsuit in Seattle.

"It's impractical, your honor, and it's going to become impossible unless something is done to right this ship"

The Fisk trial has wrapped up. Judge Lyle says she will issue her decision on Friday. Will there be a little joy in Fiskville?

Linkage (playing catch-up edition)

• Sotheby's selling vegetables.
• Original fakes.
• Art theft in Sydney.
• Henry Moore sketch stolen.
• Victorian statue stolen.
• Suit over NYC Parks Department drawings.
• Photography is not a crime.
• Another Salander verdict.
• Artist sues gallery owner.
• Chelsea Art Museum closes . . . for the summer.
• VARA suit in Pennsylvania.

"Why is a set of photos worth millions if they were shot by Ansel Adams, and next to nothing if the photographer depressing the plunger was a nobody?"

The WSJ's Eric Felten on the art world name game.

"Mr. Streets initially denied in an interview that he was the same David W. Streets who was convicted of passing bad checks, fraud and petty theft"

NYT: Tale of Ansel Adams Negatives Grows Hazy.

"Some in the New York State Legislature thought they knew more about running museums and other cultural institutions ..."

". . . than the managements and boards of those institutions."

An excellent post by the Charity Governance Blog's Jack Siegel on the death of the Brodsky Bill. The whole thing is worth reading, but some highlights:

• "While we assume most museums would prefer not to sell parts of their collections, that option should not be taken off the table through legislative fiat. Most organizations are not as well endowed as the likes of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty, or the Art Institute of Chicago. If selling an object is necessary to keep the doors open, so be it."
• "The need for the proposed legislation rests on the faulty distinction between program and overhead expenses. ... The bill assumes that amounts spent on acquiring physical objects to be added to the collection are mission expenses and everything else is needless overhead. That is why the bill precludes expenditures of proceeds from the sale of objects from the collection for operating expenditures. By ignoring operations, the bill ignores the 'operating expenses' associated with curators, security, catalog preparation, and environmental controls."
• "The proposed legislation places a premium on hoarding objects rather than how those objects are utilized. What exactly is wrong with a museum that has developed a first rate collection in Aboriginal artwork from selling two French Impressionistic paintings to raise funds to improve its educational programs regarding Aboriginal art? Seems to us that any limit on such sales defeats this museum’s mission. Our friends in the New York legislature might permit the sale if the funds are used to buy more Aboriginal artworks, but why is having more objects necessarily better than having an extra curator or educators who can provide the public with a greater understanding and appreciation of the Aboriginal collection?" (my emphasis).

Meanwhile, Judith Dobrzynski is also glad the bill is dead, but warns that the battle, "which is really about the control of museum governance, is not over yet."

"We are having an attorney look at the contract to figure out if we can legally do it"

"It may be a situation where they say you can’t but we can."

The New York Times on a dispute between "provocative performance artist" Ann Liv Young and P.S. 1.

Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento has some thoughts.

Grade Inflation

It used to be that selling a work of art was like selling your wedding ring.

Now we're told it's like selling your grandmother.

(Unless, of course, the proceeds are used to buy more art, in which case it's like this.)

“Although I may have suggested to you that I had paid James his portion . . .”

". . . at no time did I share with James any payments you made to me towards the purchase of a Tall Glass work."

Randy Kennedy had a report this weekend in the New York Times on the settlement of dealer Michael Hue-Williams's lawsuit against artist James Turrell. I represented Turrell in the lawsuit (along with my friends at Clarick Gueron Reisbaum).

I would just emphasize that the case was always really about the so-called Tall Glass series of work and, on that score, the resolution is a complete victory for Turrell. Recall this New York Sun article from early on, entitled Lawsuit Aims to Force Artist to Create Art. Well, not only was Turrell NOT forced to create any work, but as part of the settlement Hue-Williams "expressly relinquish[es] any rights" to the Tall Glass series. Hue-Williams was also required to take the rather extraordinary step of sending a letter to collectors making the admission I quoted in the header above. It's also important to note that under the settlement Turrell does not make any payment at all to Hue-Williams in connection with the Tall Glass works. So, as I say, we were pretty thrilled with the result.

"Whatever the facts of the case, all the documentarian's polemical tricks stand instructively exposed here . . ."

". . . making the film an absorbing, if highly tendentious exercise."

"The reality is, as you bleed Fisk to death, you bleed the ability to (care for) the Stieglitz collection”

Day 2 of the Fisk trial.

"The historically black school says if it can’t turn the art into $30 million cash, it may have to close its doors"

"The state Attorney General suggests Fisk is bluffing."

The Fisk trial is underway.

What I don't get is why people seem to feel that unless Fisk's condition is absolutely dire (as opposed to merely really really really bad), the Correct View of the case is to be opposed to the sale. I mean, whether or not Fisk is (as the AG suggests) "bluffing," there is no doubt that they can really use the money. (Fisk President Hazel O'Leary testified this afternoon that the school is $2 million in debt and "has no place to cut" and would need to double its annual fundraising rate "just to balance its budget.")

The deal they're trying to make inolves selling a 50% undivided interest in the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, with Fisk retaining the right to display the collection for six months out of every year.

So there's no concern about the work leaving the "public trust."

The $30 million would sure come in handy for Fisk.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with two museums sharing certain works. That way, they can share the financial burden, and the art gets more visibility. (I think it's a pretty safe bet that many more people would see the work at Crystal Bridges each year than at Fisk.)

So what accounts for the view that Fisk is doing something wrong here? Well, it violates O'Keeffe's "intent"; she didn't want the works sold. As an initial matter, however, do we really know that? Presumably, she gave the collection to Fisk because she wanted to help them. If she knew of their financial difficulties today (even if they didn't rise to the level of imminent closure), are we really sure that she would oppose this collection-sharing arrangement?

But putting that aside, if it's good for Fisk, and it's good for the art (because they can take better care of it at the museum), and it's good for the public (because more people will have a chance to see the art if it's at two venues rather than one) . . . why would anyone be opposed to all of that in the name of "donor intent"? I understand why the donor cares about the donor's intent. But are there people out there who just go around making sure that other people's intentions are honored? Who can't sleep at night if the intent of some guy who died in New Zealand 50 years ago is violated in some way? Do they get equally worked up about violations of donors' intent in non-art contexts? It's an outrage, I tell you. His intent has been violated! This cannot stand!

If the donor's intent was that, after X number of years, the works should be destroyed one by one, would we condemn a museum that tried to save them?

I guess what I'm saying is: it wouldn't bother me too much if Fisk ends up with $30 million and Crystal Bridges gets to host the collection for six months out of the year.

Linkage

• VARA suit in Pennsylvania.
• The fine art of crime.
• Chelsea Art Museum in trouble.
• Art & law residency program.
• Tax-free housing for museum directors.

"We all saw that a one-size-fits-all approach was not going to work"

The Brodsky Bill appears to be dead. Robin Pogrebin has the story in the NYT. I won't be shedding any tears, though, as Pogrebin reports, the New York Board of Regents plans to make permanent the "emergency regulations" it put in place in 2008, which achieve much the same effect.

Shepard Fairey is still getting sanctioned

Ben Sheffner explains here (in the comments).

Linkage

• Lehman Brothers art for sale.
• Financial problems at the Folk Art Museum.
• Last chance for "thousands of small exempt organizations that could lose exempt status because of the failure to file a Form 990."

"Many nonprofit organizations pleaded with New York lawmakers to reject the proposal"

The Chronicle of Philanthropy: "Nonprofit organizations across the country are concerned that a budget plan on the verge of adoption in New York State limiting charitable deductions for 'high earners' could catch on with other cash-starved state governments—and Congress—and cause a loss of significant contributions. The New York Senate last night joined the Assembly in passing a budget plan that has a provision that would apply to the approximately 3,500 New York taxpayers who earn more than $10-million annually and limit the deduction they can claim on their state tax returns to only 25 percent of their charitable contributions, rather than the current 50 percent."

Mayor Bloomberg called the plan "'stupid,' stating that for 'a small amount of incremental revenue to the state, it will discourage subconsciously or consciously others from giving money to charity.'"

"I can’t believe it but New York finally did it!"

NY is set to pass UPMIFA. For background, see here. More here.

Linkage

• Tackling graffiti in San Francisco.
• Cleaning up graffiti in Rome.
• Customs clampdown on art brought into the UK.

"[I]t still seems reasonable to conclude that Dr. Barnes would consider selling it and more to preserve the integrity of the main collection"

Friend of the Barnes Evelyn Yaari suggests the Barnes move could have been prevented by the sale of some work. She's not the first.

Linkage

• Australians can continue to invest their retirement funds in art. (For background, see second item here.)
• Media groups seek to file amicus briefs in support of sports artist Daniel Moore.
• The problem of scrap metal theft.
• ARTnews on Robert Wittman.
• More on the Kustodiev authenticity dispute.
• Motivations behind art theft.
• The Copyright Cleanup, Clarification and Corrections Act.
• Stolen painting recovered in Brazil.
• Painting goes missing from the UK Supreme Court building.

"I am truly sorry for my behavior. You trusted me and I betrayed you"

Salander sentenced.

"The restoration completes a reversal of physical decline that began in 1961"

I found it amusing that Philadelphia Inquirer art critic Edward Sozanski was able to write an entire, glowing piece on the Gross Clinic conservation (it "restored the masterpiece to something close to how it looked when it left the artist's studio") without once mentioning that the whole thing was made possible by a case of deaccessioning. He says the project was "carried out by the picture's joint owners, the Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts," but he neglects to say how they became joint owners.

Fisk Trial About to Begin

Starts Aug. 11. The AP summarizes:

"Fisk hopes to sell a 50% share in the collection, donated by the late painter Georgia O'Keeffe, with the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. The school would use the proceeds from the deal to shore up its finances."

If only it were okay for two museums to each own a 50 percent interest in a body of work, and share the financial burden, and having a second venue were fair to the art, which gets more visibility.

"What’s more vital, a dead man’s acrimony, or the relationship between classic art and the public?"

Film critic Michael Atkinson reviews The Art of the Steal:

"But the larger questions begin to nag, as it becomes clear that Argott’s position is that ... the limitations [Barnes] put on the collection’s use are by themselves pure, righteous and meaningful. They’re not, really. The undisputed legal legitimacy of the Barnes will notwithstanding, it doesn’t really matter to the art itself if it’s rarely seen in a suburban building or if it’s seen by millions in Philadelphia."

" It's an amazing and gripping article -- and totally calls into question pretty much all of Biro's work"

More praise for David Grann's recent New Yorker piece on Peter Paul Biro.

"The case was over wether Dosch reneged in 2008 over the purchase over a Picasso painting"

Josh Baer: "The Max Lang Gallery’s lawsuit against Ralph Dosch’s collection DOBE Fine Art went to trail and a jury awarded Lang a $2 million verdict."

"However, Adams said he is reluctant to claim that the sales are a copyright violation . . ."

". . . because that would require a legal acknowledgement that they are Ansel Adams images."

The LAT's Mike Boehm points to an interesting Catch-22 in the story of the newly-discovered "Ansel Adams" negatives: if they really are by Adams, then it's a copyright violation for the guy who found them to make prints from them. But to bring a copyright infringement suit, the Adams' estate would have to concede the negatives are in fact by Adams!

If you're late to this whole story, Lindsay Pollock has the Cliff Notes version.