Knoedler's profits from Rosales sales were $43 million

Lee Rosenbaum walks through the latest indictment.

"Will accurate 3-D reproductions disrupt art markets?"

Some thoughts from Tyler Cowen.

"Could museums routinely sell shares of their work, raising billions of dollars they never thought possible? Maybe so."

Denver Post art critic Ray Mark Rinaldi makes a repulsive Stalinesque trickle down theorist suggestion:  "What if [Detroit] sold part ownership of a dozen or so pieces? That might help save the city with enough left over to actually purchase additional pieces for the collection, and expand arts education efforts to schools. Even the Association of Museum Directors would have a hard time arguing against that."  Oh, don't be so sure.

"Perhaps the biggest question Detroit is forcing all of us to ponder is a basic one, and fundamentally political in nature: what is the value of art to a city?"

Michael Bennett:  How Best to Spend The Detroit Institute of Arts' 15 Minutes of Fame.

"There's nothing in Chapter 9 that enables creditors to force an asset sale." (UPDATED)

Georgetown bankruptcy professor Adam Levitin on whether creditors can force the liquidation of the DIA collection.  He expands upon it at Salon.com, where he makes three central points.

First, he argues that the collection "should be off-limits for the city’s creditors. If Detroit is to be rebuilt, it needs a cultural base, not just an economic base. ... Proximity to cultural treasures is ... part of what makes living in a city attractive and part of the package Detroit needs to attract businesses and tourism.  Letting creditors liquidate the city’s cultural patrimony would doom Detroit to a stillborn restructuring, the ultimate in penny-wise, pound-foolish decisions."

Second, he points out that, unlike with a personal- or corporate-bankruptcy, "bankruptcy law has no provision that requires cities to sell their assets to satisfy creditors."  So Detroit cannot be forced to sell the art.  If the Michigan Legislature passes legislation affirming the attorney general's "non-binding opinion" that the art is off limits to creditors, then it cannot be sold in bankruptcy.  Period.

And third -- and this, I think, is really a crucial point -- while the "creditors may complain that it is unfair for the city to hold on to a valuable asset while not paying them in full," the truth is that "liquidating the art collection would represent a giant windfall for creditors. No creditor ever relied on being able to seize the DIA collection when extending credit to the city."

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE:  Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento has some questions in response to Levitin's piece.

Axa suing Christie's

Sandy-related.

More arrests "expected" in Knoedler case

Latest developments here.

"But the danger of the appraisal now taking place ... is that it will reveal a much greater value than the $2.5bn bandied about recently."

The Art Market Monitor:  What if the DIA's collection is worth a lot more than people think?

"If it’s true, I’m shocked about it and disgusted. It’s crazy. Isn’t being Jasper Johns’s assistant enough?"

The New York Times on the reverberations from the theft charges against a long-time assistant.

"The way we look at reality is highly influenced by the context it’s presented to us." (UPDATED 2X)

New details about the creator of the Knoedler fakes, from the superseding indictment handed up Wednesday against Glafira Rosales.

UPDATE:  Rosales seems to be cooperating with the investigation.

UPDATE 2:  The Painter has been identified.

"Jasper Johns Assistant Charged With Stealing the Artist’s Work"

Patricia Cohen has the story.

"Christo Facing New Lawsuit To Stop His ‘Over The River’ Project"

Story here.  Kriston Capps points out that "Christo and Jeanne-Claude's medium isn't fabric and nature, it's community hearings and Environmental Impact Statements."

Rosales out on bail

"Federal prosecutors have accused Ms. Rosales of selling dozens of fake paintings that she said were by Modernist masters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell through the now-shuttered Knoedler Gallery on the Upper East Side and another dealer over a period of 15 years."

"Paintings worth tens of millions of dollars that were stolen last October from an art museum in the Netherlands have not been burned ..."

". . . and a Romanian gang behind the theft wants to cut an unspecified deal with the authorities so the artwork can be returned, lawyers for the defendants said on Tuesday as they went on trial in Romania."

Detroit and The Barnes

Interesting post from The Art Market Monitor.

"Hence a donation to prevent trachoma offers at least 10 times the value of giving to the museum."

Peter Singer on how to give.

Detroit Dialogue

The responses to the NYT's "invitation to dialogue" regarding Frank Robinson's letter on Detroit are in.  You can read them here.  Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento has a summary here.  Judith Dobrzynski runs some responses that didn't make it into the paper.

"How, even at a theoretical level, can we elevate inanimate things -- no matter how transcendent they are in their beauty and history -- over the needs of human beings?"

Bill McGraw:  Six Things About Detroit That Are Worse Than The Idea Of Selling Its Artwork.

"It is hard to imagine the revival of a city that divested itself of its great art museum for cash."

The Weekly Standard's Philip Terzian on Detroit.

Clarifying (UPDATED)

Judith Dobrzynski and Lee Rosenbaum get into it a little bit over Frank Robinson's NYT letter to the editor, and Robinson chimes in to clarify that his "central point" was that it's "important" that "museum people" "understand" and "respond" to the view (held not by him but "some people") that "this is not the time to provide support to museums, especially when it means people might lose part of their pensions, or have basic city services cut."  I have to say I didn't come away from it with that as the central point; I read him as posing an "agonizing" question -- namely, how do museums justify choosing art over "basic services"?  (Which I assume is why the Times singled his letter out as an "invitation to dialogue.")  But I'm happy for the clarification.

UPDATE:  Christopher Knight reads Robinson's letter the way Dobrzynski did.