Abu Dhabi and Qatar Use Cultural Institutions for Change but not Without Problems

"[O]n a barren island on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, workers have dug the foundations for three colossal museums: an $800 million Frank Gehry-designed branch of the Guggenheim 12 times the size of its New York flagship; a half-billion-dollar outpost of the Louvre by Jean Nouvel; and a showcase for national history by Foster & Partners, the design for which was unveiled on Thursday. And plans are moving ahead for yet another museum, about maritime history, to be designed by Tadao Ando.

Nearly 200 miles across the Persian Gulf, Doha, the capital of Qatar, has been mapping out its own extravagant cultural vision. A Museum of Islamic Art, a bone-white I.M. Pei-designed temple, opened in 2008 and dazzled the international museum establishment. In December the government will open a museum of modern Arab art with a collection that spans the mid-19th-century to the present. Construction has just begun on a museum of Qatari history, also by Mr. Nouvel, and the design for a museum of Orientalist art by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron is to be made public next year."

For the complete story visit The New York Times.

British Museum to Manage Portable Antiquities Scheme, as Exciting New Finds Go on Display

"Culture Minister Ed Vaizey confirmed that the future funding of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) has been secured with a reduction of 15% in real terms over four years. From April 2011 it will be managed directly by the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, said: ‘Following the Spending Review settlement we will wish to maintain the integrity of the Portable Antiquities Scheme as much as we can. Bringing both the PAS and the administration of the Treasure Act together under the management of the British Museum will ensure an effective and efficient mechanism for dealing with archaeological finds made by the public, which also complements the work of curators, conservators and others at the museum’."

Complete Story at artdaily.org.

Certified Forgeries

Over 100 forged paintings were seized in a raid in Portugal last week. Most of the paintings were done in the style of famous artists, although some were imitations of known works by the artists.

Such forgeries require great artistic skill and knowledge of art. The criminals must also have had great knowledge of the art market, because they made sure to give these paintings forged certificates of authenticity.

A criminal investigator involved told the Wall Street Journal, "Picasso, Miro, Munch, Toulouse-Lautrec... it's amazing. This is the biggest [hoard of fakes] in Portugal and one of the most important in Europe."

Read the WSJ article for more detail and for one famous forger's criticisms of the paintings.

Real Estate & Art

The Chelsea Art Museum opened on West 22nd Street in 2002, committed to exploring "art within a context." Soon the context of the Chelsea Art Museum's collection must change. This month in bankruptcy court, the museum's building was sold for $19.35 million to a New York developer, Albanese Development Corp.

The sale also goes to satisfy part of the debt owed to Hudson Realty Corp. by the building owner, a company controlled by museum director Dorothea Keeser. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Keeser said she also pledged the entire collection as collateral for a separate loan to make mortgage payments. Such a pledge might violate regulations of the state Department of Education's Board of Regents, which supervises and grants charters to museums.

A spokesperson for Albanese Development Corp. told the WSJ that the firm intends to lease the building to one or several art galleries after the museum has moved out by the end of 2011.

The fate of the Chelsea collection remains unclear ...

Spotlight: Cultural Heritage Partners, Inc (VA) -- UPDATED

Established in 2010, Cultural Heritage Partners, LLC fills a market niche: cultural heritage, corporate law, business strategies, preservation and non-profit governance. The partnership was originally made up of Marion Werkheiser, Greg Werkheiser and Donald F. Craib.

L. Eden Burgess, Marion F. Werkheiser, Greg Werkheiser/Website

The partners believe that "Tangible cultural heritage, including buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts, as well as . . . intangible cultural landscapes, traditions, customs, languages and artistic expressions help define what it means to be human and hold the keys to peaceful progress of civilizations." They offer assistance in strategic planning, government relations, mediation, risk management, legal research and analysis, historical research, tax and estate planning, and more for nonprofits, private business, governments and individuals. The business model is new, the partnership is new, let's keep an eye on what and how they are doing.

Last year, CHP's team was joined by an art law veteran, L. Eden Burgess, formerly with Andrews Kurth LLP. To name just a few of the cases Eden represented. She assited German state in State of Baden-Württemburg v. Shene, 04-cv-10067-TPG, 2009 WL 762697 (S.D.N.Y. March 23, 2009) to recover a 16th century volume of prints and drawings from a St. Louis book dealer. She worked as local counsel for heirs of Kazimir Malewicz in Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam, 362 F. Supp. 2d 298 (D.D.C. 2005) and she worked on the defense of Christie’s auction house in Doss, Inc. v. Christie’s Inc., 08-cv-10577-LAP, 2009 WL 3053713 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 23, 2009) and Marchig v. Christie’s Inc., 762 F. Supp. 2d 667 (S.D.N.Y. 2011), aff’d, 2011 WL 2685608 (2d Cir. July 12, 2011).

Currently, the CHP team is five fold, in addition to the Werkheisers and Eden, the team includes Halie Geller and Tim Woodbury. It will also offer a summer position to some lucky 2nd year law student.

Source: CHP.

Cultural Branding at the Guggenheim

Last week, Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, announced that Samsung will be funding a position as part of the museum's Asian Art Program.

Alexandra Munroe has held the position of "Senior Curator of Asian Art" since 2006, and will now hold the position of "Samsung Curator of Asian Art."

The Samsung Foundation of Culture has helped to sponsor Korean art since 1965. A partnership with the Guggenheim seems apt, as both institutions are interested in promoting Asian art in a global context. More importantly, the Guggenheim gets much needed funds, and Samsung gets a more glamorous image.

Corporate sponsorship is important to the survival of many cultural institutions. For a further example, see the Whitney Museum's corporate sponsorship web page. However, a museum's artistic vision and integrity should not be compromised by corporate control. Should the existence of a paid position at a museum rest in the hands of a corporate sponsor?

On October 25, at the New York Times Arts Forum, corporate sponsors and cultural organizations met to discuss the significance of "Cultural Branding". Glyn Northington, Senior Manager of Community Relations for Target, was one of the speakers on the panel. Target sponsors "Target first Saturdays" at the Brooklyn Museum and "Target Free Sundays" at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Andrew Hamingson, Executive Director of The Public Theater, discussed how significant Bank of America has been in making Shakespeare in the Park possible.

Arthur Cohen described cultural branding as a kind of "Equity Exchange". He quoted Katherine Hepburn, who once said of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that, "she gave him sex and he gave her class."

Read Judith H. Dobrzynski's reaction to the Guggenheim move here.

A Red-Carpet Jeweler Is Charged With Fraud

“A Duchess of Newcastle diamond brooch, circa 1887. A gilded album commissioned by Marie Antoinette in 1781. A carved ivory, enamel and jeweled case made at the request of Czar Nicholaa II in 1893.

Taken together, these intricate pieces and sparkling objects are valued at about $3 million. But they make up only a fraction of the jewelry and other collectibles that federal prosecutors say were at the center of an equally intricate series of frauds orchestrated by Ralph O. Esmerian, the former owner of the jewelry company Fred Leighton, who has draped his glittering treasures around the necks and wrists of celebrities in what some have called a red-carpet marketing campaign.

Agents from the United States Postal Inspection Service arrested Mr. Esmerian, 70, a former board president of the Museum of American Folk Art and one of its biggest patrons, on Monday morning. He was charged with bankruptcy fraud and wire fraud and concealing assets, and he appeared later in the day before a federal magistrate in United States District Court in Manhattan.”

Complete story at The New York Times.

"An Object of Beauty"

Steve Martin made an appearance this evening at the Barnes & Noble on Union Square, a few blocks from Cardozo. Martin read from his new book, An Object of Beauty. The book offers promising new reading material for art lawyers in NY...

The book takes place from 1993 to 2009, during "the greatest inflation of the century" - the art market inflation. It is about a young woman, an ambitious art dealer who starts out at Sotheby's and ends up opening her own gallery in Chelsea.

Martin refused to reveal who he thinks the most overrated contemporary artist, because they are still living... However, the book pokes fun at Warhol, who "nested into art history like a burrowing mole". Martin said that he bought his first major work of art in 1968 for $125. It was an Ed Ruscha print of the Hollywood sign. When he left Hollywood, he sold it for a much larger sum of $625, and thought "I love this art stuff!"

The Deaccession Debate: Another Loophole

Last week, we learned of an "innovative arrangement" that avoided deaccessioning violations. The Brooklyn Museum had "transferred" some items from its collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, only to have the Met auction the items and transfer the proceeds back to Brooklyn.

This week, we learn of another loophole in museums' standard deaccessioning policies.

The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver is set to receive 825 paintings from a bequest. Artinfo explains that the city of Denver was given the bequest on the basis that it would build a museum devoted solely to the artist's work. The Clyfford Still Museum plans to open in 2011.

Under the museum's policies, it cannot sell any of these paintings, after accession, for any purpose other than acquiring new paintings. So now the museum is attempting to sell 4 of the paintings before they have been accessioned to the collection.

Judith H. Dobrzynski is in favor of the strategy: "I would rather see the sale of four paintings from the collection than see the museum start out life shakily. Besides, I have heard that selling donated works before official accessioning -- which sometimes takes place years after the initial gift or bequest -- is hardly rare among museums. It just happens in secret."

Taxi Cabs: perfect getaway vehicles for art heists?

During a raid in Sweden in October, police discovered three paintings. The paintings were wrapped in plastic bags and labeled “Malmö Art Museum.” This was strange, because no thefts had been reported by the museum. It was even more strange because the paintings, one by Edward Munch, are rather valuable.

The raid was part of a police investigation into a case concerning credit card fraud in the taxi sector. The taxi sector seems an unlikely group for sophisticated art heists, but this is not so unusual.

“In my experience, unlicensed taxi services (sometimes referred to as mini-cabs) have frequently been involved in criminal groups, committing such crimes as burglary, fraud and local drug distribution,” Richard Ellis, former Director of Scotland Yard’s Arts & Antiquities Unit, told the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

However, the taxi thieves in this case may not have had the ability to capitalize on the value of these works. “It is this ability in knowing how to dispose of stolen art that sets an art thief apart from other criminals," said Mr. Ellis.

Whether or not the criminals knew how to dispose of the works, it is still quite impressive that they managed to steal the works without anybody noticing.

New Takes on Old Fakes

Museums should embrace the fakes in their collections.

This summer in London, the National Gallery pieced together a fantastic exhibition, "Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries", using a variety of pieces with dodgy provenance.

This winter, the Detroit Institute of Arts is following suit and turning its worries about authenticity into a money-making opportunity with a new exhibition: "Fakes, Forgeries, and Mysteries".

Read about how museums should come clean here

US Government Returns Art Work Stolen Over Three Decades Ago to Owner

"The last of seven pieces of valuable artwork, stolen on Memorial Day in 1978 from a home in Stockbridge, are were returned to their owner by authorities.

In November of 2008, retired Massachusetts attorney, Robert R. Mardirosian, of Falmouth, was sentenced to seven years in prison following a jury conviction on August 18, 2008, for possession of stolen goods. The case arose from the theft of seven pieces of art from a Stockbridge home in 1978 – the largest burglary from a private residence in Massachusetts history.

Upon the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of Mardirosian’s last appeal, the government returned two paintings by Jean Jansem, titled Woman Seated and Boy, which are the last of the seven paintings stolen from the home of Michael Bakwin. The FBI had obtained these paintings from a Swiss friend of Mardirosian. The other five paintings, Portrait d’une Jeune Fille and Portrait d’un Jeune Homme by Chaim Soutine, Maison Rouge by Maurice Utrillo, Flowers by Maurice de Vlaminck, and a still life by Cezanne that later sold for $29.3 million at Sotheby’s, were previously returned to Bakwin."

More at artdaily.org.

MCA Denver's Approach to the Problem of Orphan Works

Last fall, this blog reported on a panel about the problem of Orphan Works. The Panel, "Lost & Found: A Practical Look at Orphan Works", was hosted by the New York City Bar Association in October 2009. A Congressional Bill addressing the issue had died out in 2009, due to the financial crisis, and the panelists discussed how lawmakers should fix the situation. In May 2010, the European Commission issued an assessment of the orphan works issue and costs of rights clearance, concluding that there is a need for a more efficient way to clear rights. The international problem still persists.

This winter, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art is taking a bold approach to the issue by hosting an exhibition of works with unknown origins, turning the problem into a clever exhibition theme.

The exhibit caught the attention of a reader of the Art Law Blog, and hopefully the exhibit will bring further attention to the orphan works issue itself.

The Responsibilities of Art Ownership

It has taken over three decades for Michael Bakwin to regain possession of his art collection.

In 1978, somebody broke into Bakwin's Massachusetts home and stole seven paintings worth millions of dollars.

In 2008, Robert M. Mardirosian, a retired criminal defense lawyer, was convicted in federal court in Boston for possessing six of the stolen paintings. Mardirosian brought the works to his law offices, then to a Swiss Bank, and then to London, where he was caught out by the Art Loss Register. Mardirosian, who stopped practicing law to become an artist, is now serving a seven-year prison term.

Now the works have finally been returned to Bakwin, who "now believes that individuals should not own extraordinarily valuable masterworks such as the Cezanne. It is too easy for such artwork to be stolen or destroyed by fire." However, Bakwin also expresses an intention to hang the works back up in his home.

The Boston Globe

A "Deaccession-in-Disguise"

Two years ago, the Brooklyn Museum transferred items that had fallen outside the scope of its collection to the Metropoltian Museum of Art. The deal had been praised as an example of collection-sharing and as a means of avoiding deaccessioning. However, it has recently emerged that the Met sold the items at auction and gave the proceeds back to the Brooklyn Museum.

Lee Rosenbaum, of CultureGrrl, believes that the deal was in violation of the Association of Art Museum Directors' Policy on Deaccessioning. She criticizes the institutions for their lack of transparency. Read her take on the issue here.

Donn Zaretsky, of the Art Law Blog, doesn't believe that the deal fell foul of accepted practices. Furthermore, he is critical of the Standard view of Deaccessioning. The belief that "sales to buy more art, totally fine; sales for any other reason, repulsive -- leads people to do a lot of funny things." Read his response here.

Members of Congress weigh in on CPIA concerns

"Within the past year, requests for import restrictions on coins have been received from Italy and Greece and Memorandums of Understanding are likely to be announced in the near future. The concerns of the collecting community have not only been expressed through significant public comment, but through a growing stack of letters from both the Senate and the House expressing concern over this process. The most recent of these is a letter dated September 27, 2010 from 12 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It expresses concern over actions of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs that "appear to undermine the legislative intent..." of CPIA. The letter points out that the restrictions on Cypriot and Chinese coins "...only discriminate against American collectors and represent a taking of their private property." The letter goes on to ask for a careful review of the Italian request stating "...specifically, there should be no expansion of the MOU to include coins, commonplace items that stand outside the scope of the legislative intent behind CPIA." A copy of the letter is posted in image form below"

Complete Story at The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild.

American Charged with Stealing Stuffed Birds in UK

"British police say they have arrested and charged an American man for stealing hundreds of rare bird skins from a British museum outside London.

Detectives investigating the theft of nearly 300 brightly colored stuffed birds from the Natural History Museum in Tring arrested Edwin Rist on Friday.

Police said Monday the 22-year-old has been charged with burglary and money laundering offenses."

More at artdaily.org.

Ratification by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines of the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage

"On 8 November 2010, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines deposited with the Director-General its instrument of ratification of the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

In accordance with the terms of its Article 27, the aforementioned Convention will enter into force with respect to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines three months after the date of the deposit of this instrument, that is to say on 8 February 2011." From UNESCO.

The Warhol Market

Last week, a Warhol sold for $63.4 million at a Phillips de Pury auction. Andy Warhol's works are in such high demand that even his friends seem to have difficulty getting hold of any.

This week, "Baby Jane" Holzer recently testified that she had paid $220,000 for a stolen Warhol. Holzer had been one of Warhol's Factory Superstars.

The testimony was given at trial against James Biear, who has been accused of stealing the work from his employer, Joseph Pulitzer's grandson, Kenward Elmslie.

Read the NY Post article here

Expert Handwriting Analysis Concludes "Secret Mark" Not a Forgery

"Expert handwriting analysis has concluded that Morton Smith did not forge the document known as “Secret Mark.” More than fifty years ago in a Judean desert monastery, Columbia University professor Morton Smith discovered a previously unknown letter from Clement of Alexandria, a second-century church father, which contained passages of a lost “secret” gospel of Mark. A debate over the authenticity of this document continues to this day."

Full story at Art Daily.

Title Insurance Concept Spreads Into Art Sales

"On Wednesday a major publicly traded insurance company, Argo Group, showed confidence in that fledgling market, announcing that it had bought ARIS, a small insurance firm that has been selling art title insurance since 2006.

Argo, based in Bermuda, has total assets of $6.7 billion and currently provides property and casualty insurance to companies around the world, covering items like airplanes and oil rigs."

Full story in The New York Times.

Metropolitan and Egypt Announce Initiative to Recognize Egypt's Title to Objects from Tut's Tomb

"Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt, announced jointly today that, effective immediately, the Museum will acknowledge Egypt’s title to 19 ancient Egyptian objects in its collection since early in the 20th century. All of these small-scale objects, which range from study samples to a three-quarter-inch-high bronze dog and a sphinx bracelet-element, can be attributed with certainty to Tutankhamun’s tomb, which was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings. The Museum initiated this formal acknowledgment after renewed, in-depth research by two of its curators substantiated the history of the objects."

Complete story at Art Daily.

ACE unveils “biggest transformation of arts funding for a generation"

"Arts Council England has today unveiled the ten-year strategy that will inform a complete overhaul of the organisations it funds in early 2011, leading to as many as 100 companies being cut.

ACE chair Liz Forgan described the changes as “the biggest transformation of arts funding for a generation”. Meanwhile, ACE chief executive Alan Davey said that the new process would be “unbureaucratic” and would move away from criticisms of the old system, which he said some had viewed as “mysterious” and a “closed shop”, continually funding the same companies."

Marion True's defence lawyer speaks out

“'In the sense of trying to comprehend all that’s happened I am in shock. That it has been five years, with never the possibility of airing the defence—it was a very long time,' Marion True, former antiquities curator of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, told the New Yorker. Last month in Rome, she saw charges against her of conspiring to receive antiquities that had been illegally excavated and exported from Italy, dismissed. The case was closed after a marathon five-year trial because the statute of limitations had expired.

The trial began on 16 November 2005, following a ten-year investigation into her associations with co-defendants Swiss dealer Robert Hecht and art expert Giacomo Medici. The case was triggered in 1995 when Swiss and Italian authorities raided Medici’s Geneva store and found thousands of photographs and records which they claimed showed illegally excavated antiquities."

For the complete story visit The Art Newspaper.

RSS Feed Protecting Nicaragua's Heritage

"The cultural heritage of Nicaragua will continue to be protected by the United States thanks to the extension of the "Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Material from the Pre-Hispanic Cultures of the Republic of Nicaragua."

The U.S. Embassy in Managua and the Ministry of Foreign of Affairs of Nicaragua have exchanged diplomatic notes to extend the agreement. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has published notification of the extended restrictions in the Federal Register."

Full editorial at the Voice of America.

Pop Goes the Auction

As evidenced by two auctions this week, there is a high demand for Andy Warhol and other pop artists.

On Monday, November 8, Phillips de Pury held its inaugural "Carte Blanche" auction. Pury invited an outsider, Private art adviser and former Christie's employee Philippe Segalot, to curate the event. Andy Warhol's "Men in Her Life" was sold for $63 million, the second-highest price ever paid for a Warhol at auction. Read about Monday's auction here

On Tuesday, November 9, Sotheby's hosted an auction of contemporary art. The top seller of this affair, going for $35.3 million, was one of Andy Warhol's paintings of a coke bottle. Read about Tuesday's auction here

Art collector settlement allows repatriation of 2 rare ceramic antiquities to Peru

"Two rare ceramic pieces can now be returned to the Government of Peru following an agreement by the United States and a New York-based collector of Peruvian pre-Columbian antiquities on Nov. 2. The settlement resulted from an investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)."

For more information with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

!Art Law Mixer at Mixed Greens!

Cardozo Art Law Society is hosting the FIRST EVER Art Law mixer event this Friday night (November 12) at Mixed Greens Gallery http://www.mixedgreens.com/

Art Law students from Brooklyn Law, Cardozo, Columbia, Fordham, Hofstra, and NYU have come together to help create this event. The party is open to everyone - artists, lawyers, and art law enthusiasts alike!

Date: Friday, November 12
Time: 18:30 - 20:30
Location: Mixed Greens Gallery, 531 WEST 26TH STREET, 1ST FLOOR, New York, NY
Price: $10 (including 1 drink, with proceeds going to support CALS activities)

Check out the event on facebook

Nazi Degenerate Art Rediscovered in Berlin

While working on the new subway lines in Berlin, workers unearthed eleven sculptures that were thought to have been lost forever. These art objects were labeled as degenerate art by the Nazis and were thought to be destroyed.

Workers found these during the initial phases of building a subway stop in front of the Berlin city hall. The works disappeared during World War II after having been included on the Nazis' list of degenerate art. Most of them have now been identified and have been put on display in Berlin's Neues Museum.

Full story here.

A Studio Party in China

Whereas many artists might worry about copyright infringement, Ai Weiwei has been facing a rather unusual set of legal issues.

Two years ago, the Shanghai government had asked Ai to create a studio for its new arts district. The municipal government recently issued an order to demolish the site, citing Ai's alleged failure to timely apply for a project development license.

Ai planned a rally disguised as a “celebration” over the weekend to protest the demolition, but was prevented from attending when the government placed him in detention. After two days under house arrest, Ai has been released.

Read the Wall Street Journal coverage here

The story raises issues regarding government sponsorship of and control over art and human rights issues.

Ruling Says Fisk can Sell Part of Art Collection

"A Nashville judge has ruled that Fisk University can sell a share of its Stieglitz art collection, but said the bulk of the proceeds must go to an endowment for the display of the artwork."

For more visit artdaily.org

Antiquities and Crimes

Last month, charges against Marion True for conspiring to receive antiquities that had been illegally excavated and exported from Italy were dismissed. The case has taken over a decade to come to a close and has raised a number of issues regarding the acquisition of cultural property.

In response to the case, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) endorsed much stricter acquisition guidelines in its 2008 report, “Acquisition of Archaeological Materials and Ancient Art.”

Francesco Isolabella, True's defense lawyer, maintains that True was innocent. Isolabella said, “It is worth considering how the Italian state orchestrated a major campaign to obtain works that are now in less committed and less organised environments than before. Considering the universality of these items [belonging to humanity], wouldn't it have been better to leave them in the museums where they were?”

Read this interesting article regarding the cultural property issues at stake

From Medici to Deutsche Bank

"Why do banks buy so much art? To earn prestige apparently. Yet that prestige may come at a cost as banks do not want to be seen spending extravagantly in the wake of the mortgage crisis and bailouts.

Few banks collect art to make money. A liquidation auction of art from collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers in London on Sept. 29, for example, raised $2.6 million. Not bad, but it won't make a dent in the $613 billion in liabilities the bank had run up when it folded."

More at Illicit Cultural Property.

China Wants its Rabbit and Rat Back

"China looks to be redoubling its efforts to repatriate the bronzes from the Summer Palace, enlisting Jackie Chan, erecting a statue of Victor Hugo who decried the looting in 1860, and circulating a petition."

More information at Illicit Cultural Property.

Artists and museums get the red carpet treatment

"Documentaries featuring Ilya Kabakov, Magritte, the Rijksmuseum and London’s National Gallery show in Canada.

Montreal’s reputation as an underground city, with its labyrinthine connections between shopping centres, hotels, stations, museums and civic centres, is enhanced this month as it tries to convince citizens and visitors to spend even more time in artificially lit spaces—contemplating the entries to the world’s principal festival of arts documentaries. The International Festival of Films on Art (Fifa) holds its 28th edition from 18-28 March, with the organisers expecting to screen more than 200 documentaries covering all art forms with, as ever, the visual arts, architecture and design strongly represented.

The festival attracts a wide range of entrants, from established TV presentations to monographs made for dedicated gallery screenings and student films made on tiny budgets. Most will not receive commercial theatrical distribution, and for many Montreal will provide the highest-profile exposure they will receive. However, founding director René Rozon also says that the festival is increasingly attended by buyers for TV companies, for whom it is a marketplace from where they can programme films for broadcast. For festival-goers the distinctions matter little—most screenings are well attended or full."

More information at The Art Newspaper.

On Arguing for Art Funding in a Uncertain Economy

"If you have been following the news about arts funding, you have reason to be concerned. A vast pool of private, public, and philanthropic capital has gone down the drain in the US, and elsewhere, in the “Great Recession”—with predictable consequences. What’s more, we may be on the cusp of a generational shift in giving priorities. “I am not optimistic that a restoration of the market and the economy will necessarily augur well for renewed or increased support of arts and culture, governmental or private,” says Charles Bergman, chairman and chief executive of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, echoing a widely shared concern. Arguments that used to work on behalf of the arts no longer always do. And the arguments advocates are using instead all too often miss the point, by making roundabout claims that ignore what makes art appealing on a gut level."

More at "Funding: the state of the art" in The Art Newspaper.

Sotheby’s Vice Chair Opening New York gallery

"Former Sotheby’s vice chairman Emmanuel Di Donna is teaming up with London dealer Harry Blain to open a gallery in uptown New York. The duo officially start trading in mid-November, and hope to sign the lease on a new space off Madison Avenue shortly. The gallery, Blain Di Donna, will focus on secondary market sales."

For more visit The Art Newspaper.

Underground Art

A large-scale exhibition has been mounted, illegally, under the streets of New York City in an old, unfinished subway station. Anyone who is caught defacing MTA property (perhaps by painting over it), is subject to arrest and to fines. Merely to visit the exhibition space, one must illegally trespass through MTA property.

Those who participate in the project or visit the site risk not only breaking the law, but also risk their breaking their necks. The abandoned subway station is far more dangerous than any Chelsea gallery. Accordingly, one artist says, “We’re not under the illusion that no one will ever see it. But what we are trying to do is to discourage it as much as possible.”

Read more about one reporter's tour of the site here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/arts/design/01underbelly.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Explore it yourself here: http://theunderbellyproject.com/

A Resale Right for Artists ... in Canada?

“The whole value of an art work is not made on the original sale,” said April Britski, national executive director of the Canadian Arts Representation [CARFAC]. “Visual artists are at a great disadvantage compared to writers or musicians who keep getting money from recordings or books. [With art,] you sell it once and it’s gone.”

CARFAC is lobbying for a five-per-cent resale right to be added to proposed amendments to Canada’s copyright legislation. The right exists in 59 other countries, including the UK and France, but not in the United States.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/visual-artists-seek-a-percentage-of-resale-riches/article1778386/?cmpid=rss1&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheGlobeAndMail-Entertainment+%28The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Arts+News%29