How to be ethical in the art world

In two easy steps.

Step one:  when the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts sells a $40 million Hopper in order to buy a bunch of contemporary art, say nothing.  Relax.  No reason to be so touchy.

Step two:  when the Delaware Art Museum announces plans to sell $30 million worth of art in order to keep from closing, get out the pitchforks.  Act as outraged as possible.  Rend garments.  And most of all:  PUNISH THEM.

A little thing called ethics, my friends.  Get with the program.

Release the hounds!

Randy Kennedy in the NYT:  Delaware Art Museum Will Sell Works to Pay Off Debt.

How dare they!?  Repulsive Stalinesque scoundrels.  Have they no decency?  Why can't they just fail quietly and go home?

I assume they will be sanctioned and sanctioned good.  This cannot stand.

Prince-Cariou Settlement

As anyone who is interested enough in art law to be reading this blog must know by now, the long-running Prince-Cariou fair use lawsuit has settled.  Terms were not disclosed.  Here is Randy Kennedy.  Here is Brian Boucher.  Here is Julia Halperin.

My take on this is that, after all the drama, we still have no idea what's fair use and what isn't and that's just a fact.

"Settlement Reached in Cy Twombly Foundation Lawsuit"

Two directors have resigned.

The AAMD has responded to the Randolph College deaccessioning with their usual persuasive reasoning

"Because we said so."

Hand-wringers gonna wring

The Art Market Monitor takes on the latest art world "ethical" controversy:  works being loaned to museums ... and then later sold.  Says the Monitor:

"Why this trend should be considered a bad thing... is not clear. The unstated premise seems to be that art gaining value because it has been recognized by curators is a bad thing. But isn’t that what the market needs to see more of? ... [W]ould it be a terrible thing for the public and the art historical establishment to have collectors eager to make loans, even becoming solicitous of curators?"

"Formally severing Detroit’s ownership of the DIA would be at once revolutionary and conservative."

Mark Stryker looks at the implications of the potential "grand bargain" in Detroit.

"In fact, the doctrine of mutual mistake is one of the most complex and confusing areas we encounter in our practice."

The Brothers In Law explain.

"Art world power brokers don’t know what to make of Maximo Caminero."

Jed Perl on the recent Ai Weiwei vandalism.

Does eccentricity raise the value of art?

Via the Freakonomics blog.

Another foundation sued over authentication

Last month it was Haring.  Now it's Calder.

This seems like a big deal

Getty Images is opening up the bulk of its photo collection for free.

Wait, what?

The NYT's Patricia Cohen reports on a new lawsuit by the Basquiat estate against Christie's.  Apparently they complain that Christie's "did not ask the estate's opinion on the authenticity" of certain works it's offering for sale, though, as Cohen drily notes, "the estate's authentication committee was disbanded in 2012."

"While Mr. Ai has defaced works to make new art, one difference is that, unlike Mr. Caminero, he owned the art before he ruined it."

The New York Times has the latest on the artist "who stunned the art world by smashing a vase by the Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei at the Perez Art Museum in Miami."

New Resale Royalty Legislation Introduced

Patricia Cohen has the story in the Times.  Lee Rosenbaum has a close analysis here, including the following:

"The amount of the royalty payable on a resale would be capped at $35,000.  This is a major collector-friendly change:  There was no cap in [the] previous bill."

New Orleans residents foil plot to steal Banksy mural

Story here.

"The courts have taken an approach to fair use that we do not believe was originally intended."

The NYT's Patricia Cohen had an interesting piece over the weekend on efforts by photographers' groups to push back against expansive interpretations of fair use.  Alfred Steiner thought it misled by failing to "emphasize [the] crucial difference between one copy (artwork) and many copies (movie)."  For more on that distinction, see here.

60 Minutes on art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi

You can watch it here.   Deborah Solomon and Jillian Steinhauer were unimpressed.

Derek Fincham says "it was a reminder of how little safeguards protect genuine works of art from forgeries." I would say it's a reminder of how little difference there sometimes is between genuine works of art and forgeries.

"Bateman said Randolph College’s Maier Museum of Art is not a 'museum' but part of a 'non-profit institution that owns art.'"

"As a result it operates not according to the rules and regulations that govern museums but the fiduciary responsibilities of an institution of higher education, said Bateman."

Bateman is Randolph College's President, and I think he's clearly right.  For those interested in this issue of university-owned artworks -- I mean really interested in grappling with the complexities rather than doing the usual Ohmigod Repulsive routine -- I would start with the law review articles mentioned here and here.

It's also interesting to compare Randolph's approach to that taken by the Brandeis administration during the Rose debacle.  Brandeis started out by conceding too much rhetorical ground to the Deaccession Police.  They thought if we have a "museum," we are bound by their rules.  So they came up with what turned out to be a disastrous plan to "close" the Rose.  But that put them on the defensive right from the start.  Randolph, on the other hand, made the decision to stand up to the deaccession bullies, to refuse to accept their way of framing the debate.  As Bateman says in the article linked above:  "They [the AAMD and the other deaccession bullies] have a single position and they don’t want anyone to think about these issues in any way other than the way they want you to think about it."  I think he just summed up about five years of my blogging on this subject in one sentence.

"The lawsuit on Friday seeks $40 million in damages and says the plaintiffs lost sales because potential buyers were deterred by the foundation’s statements and actions."

An authenticity lawsuit against the Haring Foundation.