Monday, February 12, 2018

$6.7 million in damages in the 5Pointz case (UPDATED)

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Story here .  I've got to say I did not see that one coming. From the opinion (reproduced here ):  "If not for Wolkoff's ins...
Saturday, February 10, 2018

"On Thursday, a New York Supreme Court judge dismissed the auction house’s request for a summary judgment against Anatole Shagalov, who the house claims ponied up a record-breaking bid for the work but then failed to pay up."

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Artnet news:   A Legal Battle Between Sotheby’s and a Dealer Over a Record-Setting Keith Haring Painting Is Headed for Trial .

"A lawyer representing the artist behind Digital DNA, a 7-foot-tall sculpture in Palo Alto's Lytton Plaza slated for removal later this month, has threatened to sue the city under the Visual Arts Rights Act"

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Story here .  As I've noted before , VARA claims over the simple  removal of work have not fared well.
Friday, February 09, 2018

BREAKING: "Berkshire Museum Victory" (UPDATED 3X)

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Andrew Russeth:  " Berkshire Museum Victory: Massachusetts Attorney General Agrees to Art Sales, With Rockwell Going to Public Institut...
Tuesday, February 06, 2018

"A deal to resolve the Berkshire Museum art sale dispute is on the table, legal observers predict."

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" But it could be days before the public learns what that compromise might look like ."
Monday, January 29, 2018

"Museum industry standards on deaccessioning are inflexible and antiquated."

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Nina Simon, executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art, has an interesting piece in the Berkshire Eagle arguing against "cling...

AG requests one-week extension of Berkshire Museum injunction

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Reports the Berkshire Eagle, which adds that "because the museum does not oppose the request for an extension of the injunction, it is...
Sunday, January 28, 2018

"In reality, what goes on display at museums is, I’d guess about 98 percent of the time, just what the wall copy claims it to be."

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Noah Charney:   How Did the Modigliani Forgeries Make It Into an Exhibition?
Saturday, January 27, 2018

"But in the supercilious guild of museum elitists, deaccessioning items from a collection for any purpose other than acquiring more important items is a hanging offense."

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Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes about "the dogmatic world of the deaccession police, [where] the Berkshire [Museum] would be...
Monday, January 22, 2018

Missing the Forest

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San Francisco Chronicle art critic Charles Desmarais has a rebuttal to Michael O'Hare's recent piece on deaccessioning, which I dis...
Friday, January 19, 2018

BREAKING NEWS: The Ellis Rule Is Back

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Brought back by the eponym himself . The recent run of deaccessioning sanity continues.  Glenn Lowry , Michael O'Hare , Tim Schneider ...
Sunday, January 14, 2018

"But let’s at least seriously consider how billions of dollars in stored art might be able to help solve some of the crises afflicting art museums around the world."

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More deaccessioning-related sanity, this time from Tim Schneider .  (Other recent bouts of sanity here and here .)

"Lowry is moving in the right direction and will make real waves among his peers."

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Michael O'Hare (discussed earlier here ) on Glenn Lowry (discussed earlier here ).
Saturday, January 13, 2018

"This is really bad for U.S. collectors"

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The NYT Wealth Matters column this week:   How the Tax Code Rewrite Favors Real Estate Over Art . It's about the elimination of 1031 e...
Friday, January 12, 2018

"This happens from time to time when a minor museum can’t fix the roof or keep the heat on, and the moral outrage machine goes into high gear, wailing that the sold works will be 'lost' to humanity forever!"

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A very good day for sanity in the deaccessioning debate. First, MoMA's Glenn Lowry joined me -- and Felix Salmon -- in the anti-anti...

Glenn Lowry Just Joined My Deaccessioning Hall of Fame

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From an interview with Charlotte Burns : " Charlotte Burns : Do you find that the current de-accession policies need adapting? ...

"The $10 million offer was to have expired Jan. 1, but the museum board has voted to extend it indefinitely."

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If you have information that would lead to the recovery of the stolen Gardner works, and didn't get around to disclosing it by the end ...
Wednesday, January 10, 2018

"What seems to be lost in this discussion is due consideration of the specious assumption at its core: That free admission actually engages low income audiences."

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Colleen Dilenschneider :  "Data indicate that free admission has little to no correlation with how well museums – including the Met – w...

"Why Mickey Mouse’s 1998 copyright extension probably won’t happen again"

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Copyrights from the 1920s will start expiring next year if Congress doesn’t act .
Tuesday, January 09, 2018

"No one likes to sell art. But if there is a higher purpose to better serve the students that we serve, we will."

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Philadelphia Magazine:  La Salle’s President Defends Her Controversial Plan to Auction Artwork . What makes her think better serving her s...