tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69025928042057357482012-02-16T12:40:43.982-05:00Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.comBlogger1281100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-6857650979716530382011-12-12T23:54:00.000-05:002011-12-12T23:54:21.321-05:00

NEW YORK. Christie's may have successfully defended the fraud claims brought against it by Guido Orsi but as Donn Zaretsky says, the "chilling effect" of the principle (aka legal precedent) established by the suit remains: an auction house can be sued by a third party that has no contractual relationship whatsoever with such auction house.  LONDON/NEW YORK. The threat of legal action in

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Judith Dobrzynski recently posted a fascinating piece on some of the issues raised by Hicham Daoudi's three-year €450,000 grant to the Pompidou Center that "must be spent on art by Moroccan artists." While there's no doubt that the "source market" of an artistic object has a strong bearing on the value the international art market confers on such object -- with a lesser value being given to art

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NEW YORK. A Knoedler & Co. rep told Bloomberg the closure of the 165-year old UES gallery was a "business decision" but the unexpected announcement raised eyebrows as it came one day day after GLG Partners Inc. co-founder, Pierre Lagrange, filed suit in federal court against Knoedler and its former director Ann Freedman for allegedly selling him a fake Pollock back in 2007. Attempts by Lagrange

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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, J.M.W. Turner (1823). Oil on canvas. Tate Gallery, London LONDON. When J.M.W. Turner died in 1851, he bequeathed "about 300 paintings and 30,000 drawings as well as a large sum of money" to the nation of Great Britain on two conditions: (i) that the works be displayed in a "Turner Gallery" at the National Gallery in London and (ii) that the money be used "for the

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BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS. Alice Walton’s long-awaited Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art finally opened its doors to the public on Friday. The museum is "endowed with $800 million from the Walton Family Foundation" -- much to the dismay of the disenfranchised Wal-Mart employees who are teaming up with Occupy Wall Street to protest the construction of the museum -- and admission will be free. The

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NEW YORK. Next Friday, November 18 the New York County Lawyers' Association (the "NYCLA") will host the 4th Annual Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Institute. The day-long event promises to be an unrivalled opportunity for lawyers and non-lawyers to discuss some of the most pertinent legal issues affecting the art world today. The experts attending include Lawrence M. Kaye (of Herrick,

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HAWAII. The worlds of art and finance have been inextricably linked since the ancient world though the phenomenon is most strongly associated with the golden age of art patronage in pre-modern medieval and Renaissance Europe. Wealthy royals, aristocrats and merchants not only financed the arts but also played an important role in shaping the form and subject matter of the art they sponsored. Fast

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LONDON. In 1967, Henry Moore and the Contemporary Art Society donated Knife Edge Two Piece (1962-65) to the United Kingdom. The bronze sculpture has since stood directly opposite the Houses of Parliament, admired by millions either in person or through its televised appearances in the background of news programs and becoming somewhat of a national emblem. However, the work is "badly discloured

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NEW YORK. Bloomberg recently reported that former hedge-fund manager Michael Steinhardt secured a "very cheap" loan from JPMorgan Chase Bank by pledging a number of the works in his fine art collection (estimated to be worth over $200 million) as collateral. While the use of art as collateral to obtain finance has been on the rise for some time now (Steinhardt joins the ranks of other managers

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NEW YORK. After a two-month break from blogging, I had no idea what stories I would find upon my return but this one was certainly a surprise. The Art Newspaper has reported that the Warhol Foundation will dissolve its art authentication board (allegedly to focus on the Foundation's charitable and catalogue raisonné efforts) by early 2012. I say "allegedly" because, notwithstanding the fact that

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WASHINGTON D.C./GREECE. The US and Greece have signed an MOU that makes it illegal for antiquities and Byzantine objects to be imported to the US without the approval of Greek authorities. The measure is aimed at reducing looting and trafficking of these culturally-protected objects. Lee Rosenbaum has criticized the secrecy involved in the decision-making process but transparency would be

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The artist's resale "royalty" right or droit de suite refers to an artist's right to a share of the proceeds realized from the resale of such artist's work. As the Lerner and Bresler treatise on art law astutely points out, the "prerogative is an attempt to equalize the copyright status of visual artists with that of other authors" because, unlike those creative authors who make substantial

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Gallery View - Romantic Gothic. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Through August 7, 2011 Dedicated to my dear friend Jeremy More often than not, fashion is fickle and fleeting, derivative and uninspired until the genius of the caliber of McQueen accomplishes that rare feat of turning garments and accessories

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ST. LOUIS. It's always bitter sweet when a case settles. On the one hand, it's a good thing that costly, lengthy and probably hugely draining litigation has been avoided. However, on the other hand, we lawyers are robbed of what could have been a valuable legal precedent. And often it's precisely those cases capable of clarifying a previously unsettled area of law that are settled out of court.

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We're all clear that under the U.S. Copyright Code, the author of an original work has exclusive rights over the copyrighted work. But what if the author is not a living person but rather a monkey? The question has arisen not once but twice in the past eighteen months: originally in the context of a video that was entirely filmed by chimpanzees and more recently when a monkey in Indonesia

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FRANCE. Remember that post about the electrician who was gifted 271 works by Picasso for a mere 3-years' worth of services rendered? Last December, French authorities seized the never-before-seen, unsigned and undated collages, sketches and prints pending investigation of their provenance and prosecutors have now charged the 71-year old and his wife with handling stolen goods. Can't say I'm that

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Statue of Yuri Gagarin (a copy of a Russian original) LONDON/MOSCOW. The serious tensions in political and cultural relations between the UK and Russia (stemming from the UK's insistence that Russia extradite former KGB agent Andrei Lugovo in connection with the murder of dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006) have eased leading to a greater exchange of art between the two countries. What

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The latest development in the Tyson tattoo saga is that defendant Warner Bros. will digitally remove the copyrighted tattoo from the DVD version of  "The Hangover Part II." In legal documents filed Monday the studio said it did "not intend to make any use of the allegedly infringing tattoo after the film ends its run in the theaters because Warner Bros. will digitally alter the film to

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Barnes Foundation executive director and president Derek Gillman announced today that the Foundation will be investing "more than $300,000 to "revitalize" the 12-acre arboretum on the grounds of the former Barnes Collection home." He also said that the home will continue to house the Foundation's archives, which will be more available to scholars. But the announcement was more noteworthy for what

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ST. LOUIS. Given the litigious environment in which we live in, I suspect some of you are thinking that the copyright suit over the replica Mike Tyson tattoo in the film "The Hangover: Part II" is the latest in a long-list of frivolous suits that plague the legal system. However, as tattoos consecrate their place as "works of art," it was only a matter of time before tattoo artists attempted to

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The Art Newspaper reports that the Dalí Foundation is hosting a conference on the authentication of works and "fighting forgery through the courts" at Dalí’s summer home and museum a few hours away from Barcelona. Scheduled speakers include Judith Goldman, a member of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, and Veronique Wiesinger, Director of the Fondation Giacometti (the Swiss artist having

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Mark Tansey's "The Innocent Eye Test" (1981), the painting that continues to spew litigation The true owners of the Mark Tansey cow painting sold by Charles Cowles to Robert Wylde through Gagosian Gallery have filed a complaint seeking a declaratory judgment to force Wylde to hand over the painting. The Metropolitan Museum and Jan Cowles (mother of Charles Cowles) each own 31 and 69%,

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NEW YORK. When the "emergency" regulations on deaccessioning finally expired without renewal last October, an ad-hoc committee to the New York State Board of Regents was formed to, as the Maine Antique Digest puts it, "review and make recommendations on the deaccessioning process to the cultural education committee and the full board." By "deaccessioning process" what is meant is both the

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-24105309168388635072011-05-14T22:00:00.008-04:002011-05-14T22:10:03.210-04:00

Two of the comparisons attached as Exhibit A to the complaint Robert J. Lang, arguably the world's most famous origami artist, and several other co-plaintiffs have filed a complaint in federal court against painter and film maker Sarah Morris alleging her "Origami series" (2007) infringes their copyrighted artworks of crease patterns ["the lines of a crease pattern represent the folds needed

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STOCKHOLM. The Art Newspaper has reported that Sweden's KRO has called for tax incentives to encourage private investments in art. The organization is banking on the leader of the country's opposition party to back their proposal and push it forward to come into fruition but as Professor Emma Stenström is quoted as saying, above all the proposal opens the debate regarding funding of the arts. The

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Remember that lawsuit LVMH brought against the Dutch artist Nadia Plesner for using an image of a child holding a Louis Vuitton bag in the painting Darfurnica? A court in The Hague yesterday ruled in favor of the artist stating that her right to freedom of expression outweighed LV's right to protection of property. While it's true that this balancing act between such competing rights underlies

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On April 20, the VLA hosted a talk with Dan Brooks ("DB"), attorney to Patrick Cariou in Cariou v. Prince, to discuss the case and the intersection between copyright laws and appropriation art generally. Here are some notes on what was said that evening:Failure to register an artwork such as a photograph does not mean the work is completely void of copyright protection. However, damages would be

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Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts has invited Patrick Cariou's attorney, Dan Brooks, to speak with Sergio Sarmiento to discuss the case Cariou vs. Prince. If you're interested in copyright infringement and appropriation art and where the law draws the line between the two, the conference is likely to appeal to you. Details here and background here. It's unclear whether Dan Brooks will also discuss

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Artist Ossip Zadkine's illegitimate son, Nicolas Hasle, continues to be embroiled in litigation to claim moral and economic rights to his late father's estate. The court of appeal of Paris recently ruled that the City of Paris (named the beneficiary of the estate by Valentine Prax, the wife of Zadkine who inherited the estate after the artist's death) had to outline its claim to Zadkine's estate.

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Most restitution claims relating to wartime looting are in connection with the World Wars or the Holocaust but The Art Newspaper has reported that, according to Loyola Law School, legal claims of looting during the Armenian "massacres" (which many would characterize as "genocide") are on the rise. Not surprisingly, the claims are said to be following the approach adopted in Holocaust restitution

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LONDON. When UK public funding for the arts was cut by 30% last October, the question on everyone's mind was whether collectors would be able to make up the shortfall by increasing private donations such that the funding of cultural institutions would increasingly resemble that in the US. However, as this blog and many commentators pointed out, for this change in the funding structure to happen,

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 Left, a photo of a Rastafarian from Patrick Cariou's "Yes, Rasta" and, right, a painting from Richard Prince's Canal Zone series A US District judge has granted photographer Patrick Cariou's motion for summary judgment on the issue of copyright infringement by defendants Richard Prince, Larry Gagosian, Gagosian Gallery and Rizzoli books. Prince had admitted "to using at least 41 photographs

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"The Innocent Eye Test," by Mark Tansey (1981) The FT.com has reported that the Metropolitan Museum's website listed the Mark Tansey painting the subject of the recently filed claim against Gagosian gallery as "Partial and Promised Gift of Jan Cowles and Charles Cowles." And indeed it does -- here is the direct link. Last week, a spokesperson for Gagosian made a statement saying the gallery

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"UK art market loses out to "phenomenal" Chinese." FT.com reports on the European Art Foundation study revealing that the UK has lost its position as the second largest art market to China. According to the study "the UK's share of the global art market fell by 5 percentage points to 22 per cent in the four years to 2010."  The Bolton Crown Court having declared the Amarna Princess a fake

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THE HAGUE. Louis Vuitton has filed its second lawsuit against Dutch artist Nadia Plesner, this time for using an image of the fashion house's Audra bag in her painting Darfurnica and continuing to display an image of the painting on her website. Although the latest suit can be distinguished from the 2008 suit filed in Paris in that Plesner is not currently using the image for merchandise

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NEW YORK. "Collector sues Gagosian Gallery for selling him a painting partially owned by Met." Previous owner Charles Cowles (former publisher of Artforum and longtime dealer) thought he "could use the money" and "now it's a big mess"! NEW YORK. The latest case of double standards in the deaccessioning debate, as Donn Zaretsky rightfully points out. LONDON. Christie's chief operating officer Lisa

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 LONDON. Relationships between art market participants can be complex and in some cases, governed by principles of agency. [Refresher: an agent is a fiduciary of his principal owing him the highest standards at law, including the duties of utmost good faith, candor and loyalty.]  Leonardo's "Madonna and Child with St Anne and a Lamb"  Agency will be at the core of the impending

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NEW YORK/LONDON. The return of the auction guarantee has prompted The Art Newspaper to report on the history of this feature of the auction sale (first introduced by Sotheby's in 1971), its complexities, the possible legal ramifications and the mixed feelings of the market towards it (is it insurance for the seller or a form of market manipulation?). An empirical look at guarantees over the past

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WASHINGTON, DC. The Joe Simon litigation against the Warhol Foundation and Art Authentication Board (see here and here) underscored the impact the Board's determinations can have on the value of a purported Warhol. Although, as previously stated, such determinations on authenticity are not conclusive and binding on the market, in practice, where the Board holds that a work is unauthentic, it is

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Rubell Family Art Collection, Miami The Story of Jason, Keith Haring (1987) Having heard all about the Rubells and their audacious, cutting-edge art collection, I was excited to take a break from sunbathing and make my way to the nondescript warehouse once serving as a Drug Enforcement Administration storage facility for cocaine and cash and now home to one of the greatest collections in the

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WASHINGTON, DC. In virtually every restitution claim filed in federal court against a defendant foreign nation, the defendant challenges the basis of the court's jurisdiction. In December it was Spain and now it's Hungary who claims that neither the "expropriation" or the "commercial" exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (the "FSIA") apply to give the federal district court in DC

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 Modern Rome -- Campo Vaccino, J.M.W. Turner (1839) Last year, the Getty Museum bought the Turner "Modern Rome" at auction for £29.7m (setting a new record for the artist which was not surprising given the work had only come to market once in its 171 history and experts considered it to be Turner's finest landscape of an Italian city). The painting had resided on loan in the National

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Art Meets Law will be back in two weeks due to conflicting work commitments. Stay tuned!

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-9349043728538895722011-02-04T19:32:00.003-05:002011-02-04T19:38:04.084-05:00

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON D.C. The Chabad organization (based in Brooklyn, New York) has for decades sought the restitution of the Schneerson Library, "a collection of 12,000 books and 50,000 religious documents assembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement over two centuries prior to World War II, and kept since in Russia." The New York Times reports that just before the collapse of the Soviet

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SAN FRANCISCO. The New York Times has reported that Jeff Koons LLC and Park Life gallery have reached a settlement in the dispute regarding the alleged infringement of the artist's intellectual property rights by the gallery's sales of balloon dog bookends (see here for background). The artist agreed not to "pursue" the claim if the gallery didn't tie the bookends to Koons in any way, which they

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-83813021707452339962011-01-31T16:34:00.007-05:002011-01-31T18:24:12.549-05:00

"Lives of the Artists" By Calvin Tomkins (2008 ed.)   As the title suggests, this is a collection of ten biographical profiles (formerly published in The New Yorker over the last ten years) of some of the most significant (and interesting/controversial) contemporary artists including Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Jasper Johns and Maurizio Cattelan. Notwithstanding the uncontrollable, inexplicable

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-15627919885402547262011-01-30T19:16:00.004-05:002011-01-31T12:19:59.129-05:00

  NEW YORK. Titian may have been the star at the Sotheby's Old Masters sale but he wasn't alone: 16 auction records were set at the sale, which "totaled $90.6 million, just shy of its $91.8 million high estimate." Three key reasons accounting for the Titian beating the previous record for the artist ($13.6m versus the new record of $16.9m) are the exceedingly few Titians remaining in private

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-69893404464444152592011-01-28T19:42:00.000-05:002011-01-28T19:42:24.551-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO. The gallery that received a cease-and-desist letter from Koons' attorney to refrain from selling balloon dog bookends (see here) has filed a petition in federal court for a declaratory judgment which, reports The New York Times, states that the dog cannot be copyrighted according to Courthouse News Service. Here is a lively exert from the complaint: "as virtually any clown can

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-5321668257913836642011-01-28T19:29:00.003-05:002011-01-31T12:20:21.204-05:00

WASHINGTON DC. More on how the changes to the US estate tax are likely to have an adverse effect on bequests. There's no denying that the fiscal advantages to donors are a significant factor motivating gifts to institutions so the combined effect of a lower rate (35%) and a higher exemption ($5m per person) will almost inevitably put off some donors. However, if the regime is amended in two

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-40261970893083107162011-01-21T18:34:00.001-05:002011-01-21T18:35:53.863-05:00

The letter from AA Bronson's lawyers to the NPG had given the institution until January 17 to remove the Canadian artist's piece (Felix, June 5, 1994) from the controversial exhibition "Hide/Seek" unless it reinstalled David Wojnarowicz' video "Fire in my Belly." Well, on Monday a spokesperson for the NPG announced that it will not comply with Bronson's request. Bronson is said to have responded

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-68357606932114448202011-01-21T02:04:00.003-05:002011-01-21T10:54:04.689-05:00

Portrait of a Young Woman, attributed to Rubens Photograph: PA LONDON. The Export Reviewing Committee has succeeded in delaying the export of a "lost Rubens" until March to allow prospective buyers to match the £1m price paid at auction and keep the painting in Britain. This isn't the first time this practice of restricting the export of artworks has been scrutinized in the media and here -

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-50705791842927986462011-01-20T01:22:00.010-05:002011-01-21T02:10:48.561-05:00

In the midst of the heated deaccessioning debates on both sides of the Atlantic, I've long held that deaccessioning (i.e. selling or removing a work of art from a museum's collection) should be regulated as opposed to prohibited outright. The fear among the "anti-deaccessioning police" that without a blanket prohibition against deaccessioning museums will sell-off vast amounts of their

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-46820538908906586972011-01-17T22:46:00.003-05:002011-01-17T22:51:55.364-05:00

PARIS. As previously posted, A&F Markets was poised to create an art "stock exchange" (the second in the world) and ARTINFO reports the initiative has now been launched. ARTINFO states that the exchange "will treat artworks as investment vehicles" but this is technically incorrect since investors will own shares in the artworks themselves rather than in investments

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-42273610430169792572011-01-17T00:51:00.002-05:002011-01-17T00:54:22.271-05:00

Much has been written about the Smithsonian's decision to remove David Wojnarowicz' video "Fire in my Belly" from the exhibition "Hide/Seek" as it succumbed to pressure from two certain Republican lawmakers and the Catholic League (ironically drawing far greater attention to the piece as galleries and museums around the world played the video in protest and countless websites provided free access

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-41664591759087437332011-01-13T22:58:00.014-05:002011-01-14T13:00:36.635-05:00

The exhibitor list for the 2011 Armory Show, New York's largest art fair, has been released and as Lindsay Pollock points out, some of the "heavy hitters" in the New York market that participated in the 2010 fair will not be taking part next March. Names include David Zwirner and PACE and they join the 72 other dealers who will not be returning to the fair. Also skipping the fair are a couple of

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-15132331589703900512011-01-13T22:17:00.003-05:002011-01-15T18:55:55.523-05:00

A previous post discussed the European Commission's recent controversial classification of light and video-sound installations as not constituting art and therefore being subject to VAT at a rate of 20% (as opposed to 5% charged on artworks). The logic behind the regulation is inherently flawed given that VAT is said to be charged on the work's value as "sculpture" - clearly far greater than the

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-84500891929911083932011-01-11T17:06:00.002-05:002011-01-11T21:38:16.708-05:00

NEW YORK. Last month I was interviewed for a piece in The New York Times on the rise of art funds and art securitization generally. The piece is now available here. As I explained to the author, the reasons underlying the growth in art funds are several. Firstly, 2010 saw record auction prices being set for painting, sculpture, rare books and Chinese art and the article correctly references each

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-43818702307961257382011-01-10T22:22:00.001-05:002011-01-12T16:45:11.981-05:00

Members of the British Expeditionary Force posing with looted art fromthe palace of the Benin King, Nigeria. Source: Myweku.com  I previously posted about the controversial auction at Sotheby's next month of a Benin mask that was expected to set a record price for an African antiquity. The 16th century ivory mask, "one of the last great masterpieces of Benin sculpture

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-66115269612338624082011-01-09T18:35:00.001-05:002011-01-09T18:36:50.073-05:00

Judith Dobrzynski reports on the newly-created ad-hoc advisory committee to the NY Board of Regents which is intended to aide the Board in coming up with a revised deaccessioning policy (see here on the expiration of the deaccessioning "emergency" regulations last October and the outcry that ensued). Art Market Monitor interviews Judith Pearson and Lawrence Shindell of ARIS art title insurance (

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-81525144080330800912011-01-08T12:14:00.007-05:002011-01-09T02:25:57.951-05:00

Buyers and sellers of art in the private market (and to a lesser extent at auction) often overlook the fundamental question of "who acts for who," otherwise known as the legal concept of agency. The distinction is crucial because an agent is a "fiduciary" of its principal and as such the highest standards at law are imposed on him. An agent owes his principal strict "fiduciary duties" including

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-21395738169776218482011-01-06T22:41:00.002-05:002011-01-09T02:26:32.836-05:00

Jeff Koons' lawyers have sent the Park Life gallery in San Francisco a cease-and-desist letter in connection with its sale of balloon dog bookends manufactured by Toronto-based imm Living. The artist claims the bookends violate his intellectual property rights due to their resemblance of his iconic giant-sized sculptures "Balloon Dog." Of course as ARTINFO points out, the bookends also resemble "

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-67579319462848152912011-01-06T21:03:00.002-05:002011-01-07T12:03:28.833-05:00

In a previous post last October, this blog reported on how a court in Rome had ruled that the statute of limitations had run on the two criminal charges brought against the former Getty Museum curator Marion True. While the proceedings were a vitally important wake-up call to those operating in the antiquities market, I personally found it exceedingly unfair that True should have been the one to

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-76163810580982175512010-12-30T23:39:00.001-05:002010-12-30T23:43:30.044-05:00

ARTINFO's "Conversations with" series has recently published an interview with Nick Simunovic, the director of Gagosian's newish Asian outpost in Hong Kong. The growing importance of the Asian market and the buying power of collectors in the East cannot be ignored (this blog has followed the trend closely since its launch in September) making the interview not only interesting but also incredibly

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-77580159889093948782010-12-30T23:10:00.006-05:002010-12-30T23:21:07.697-05:00

LONDON. In a previous post, I discussed the UK's new anti-bribery legislation and how according to several commentators, it could be applied to capture certain payments by or to art dealers. I've now had a look at the actual text of the Bribery Act 2010 (found here) and I'm not certain it could be applied to prosecute payments of finder's fees by art dealers. In a nutshell, for the payment to

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-1110028574190568732010-12-25T17:11:00.001-05:002010-12-25T17:13:57.800-05:00

The author Sarah Thornton once described the art world as "a loose network of overlapping subcultures held together by a belief in art." While an astute observation, those overlaps are becoming more frequent and more profound with the divide between the public (institutional) and the private (commercial) becoming ever-more blurred. A corollary of this mish-mash of roles in the art world are the

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-8297104493257029202010-12-24T18:24:00.001-05:002010-12-24T18:28:03.684-05:00

2010 was the year of record auction prices: for painting and any artwork generally (the Picasso sold at Christie's for $106.5m); for sculpture (the Giacometti sold at Sotheby's for $104.3m); for rare books (the Audubon classic "Birds of America" sold at Sotheby's for $11.5m) and for Chinese art (the Qianlong vase sold at Bainbridges for $85.9m). The market has undoubtedly shown remarkable depth

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-18128977634541041072010-12-22T18:28:00.003-05:002011-01-17T00:55:43.458-05:00

WASHINGTON DC. Although First Amendment issues generally fall outside this blog's main focus within art law, I had to write this post to commend the Warhol Foundation's decision to pull its funding of the Smithsonian if David Wojnarowicz's 1987 video "Fire in My Belly" is not reinstated in the exhibition "Hide/Seek." The Smithsonian's capitulation to the pressure exerted by the Catholic League

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-86274929053712834922010-12-22T17:17:00.001-05:002010-12-30T22:23:08.372-05:00

LONDON. The Bribery Act 2010, which is set to come into force in the UK next year, is likely to change the way dealers do business in the UK but potentially also abroad given its wide territorial reach. The payment of commissions will continue to be a legitimate business practice though subject to increased scrutiny; the payment of finder's fees, on the other hand, will require disclosure to and

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-83924531162504491142010-12-18T15:40:00.006-05:002010-12-18T17:51:36.089-05:00

This week the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao defended an upcoming exhibition of artworks belonging to a museum trustee, Greek businessman Dimitris Daskalopoulos. The director of the Guggenheim Foundation, Richard Armstrong, said the show will be presented "with huge integrity" but there's no way around the fact that the museum has a "huge" conflict of interest in deciding whether to showcase a

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-50287711400211731942010-12-17T22:36:00.000-05:002010-12-17T22:36:22.767-05:00

The classification is crucial for it means that "full VAT (value added tax, which goes up to 20% next year) and customs dues" will be payable when video and light works are imported from outside the EU to any EU member state since the decision is binding on all members. In this case, the works in question were six Viola video-sound installations imported by Haunch of Venison from the US in 2006

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-47327562510599880682010-12-16T21:23:00.004-05:002010-12-17T21:51:27.399-05:00

Defendants in the Cassirer lawsuit to recover Pisarro's Rue Saint Honoré- après-midi, effet de pluie (1897) have filed a petition to the US Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision ruling that Spain and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, an instrumentality of the state, are not immune from civil suit in US courts under the "expropriation" exception to the

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-36752968967505860352010-12-14T21:24:00.006-05:002010-12-14T21:36:16.831-05:00

The notion of art as an alternative investment asset class is gaining unprecedented momentum this year: record auction prices were set for painting, sculpture, rare books and Chinese art; several market participants (and Russian regulators) affirmatively backed the rise of art funds and art securitzation (see for example, Deloitte Art & Finance conference and Skate's new art securitization

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-52330617259275392682010-12-12T11:37:00.003-05:002010-12-12T11:43:34.513-05:00

FRANCE. When I read about the French government's seizure of 271 Picassos worth an estimated $79 million from the artist's former electrician pending investigation of their provenance, I initially decided not to cover the story because the likelihood of 271 never-before-seen authentic Picassos making their way into the market seemed so small. Undoubtedly, the story would make a fascinating civil

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-73979986903018355092010-12-08T01:11:00.004-05:002010-12-08T22:06:43.895-05:00

Links to cliff notes on Art Basel Miami 2010. Artworld Salon's debrief. More favorable press for Edward Winkleman and partner galleries' new venture: "Seven: Admired newcomer. Innovative team salon approach seems to be working. Likely to be imitated." The Art Newspaper's Art Basel Miami Beach Daily Edition Did Miami Basel prove the market is back?... ... Not according to the NY Times though "in

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-37735181241664641242010-12-08T00:31:00.002-05:002010-12-17T21:43:56.388-05:00

I guess I spoke too soon when I posted that the fate of the Stieglitz Collection (and Fisk University) was finally resolved. Fisk University has announced that it will appeal the Chancery Court's decision allowing it to sell a stake in the Collection subject to Fisk having discretionary use of only $10 million of the proceeds and the balance being placed in an endowment fund to be used solely for

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-56804020997968644352010-12-07T00:51:00.002-05:002010-12-07T00:52:37.762-05:00

LONDON. The title makes reference to the experience to date of the UK Museum Association's ("MA") "relaxed ethical stance" on deaccessioning since its adoption in 2007. The UK's experience illustrates how "slippery slope" arguments against taking this position on deaccessioning don't necessarily hold true, at least not in all cases. In an article in The Art Newspaper, the MA's head of policy

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-33319474760125483752010-12-05T12:44:00.003-05:002010-12-06T23:57:06.111-05:00

LONDON. Stories of artists being hard done by their dealers are well known: the artist is a starving genius, the dealer, an unsavory intermediary operating freely on an opaque and unregulated market. As a result, artists are increasingly exploring alternative ways of selling art that challenge today's traditional model such as direct sales from the artist's studio (it's worth noting that

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-50501642506120355722010-12-04T22:02:00.001-05:002010-12-04T22:03:46.897-05:00

 Tips for Artist's Who Want to Sell (1966-68) (Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and © John Baldessari)    "John Baldessari: Pure Beauty"       Metropolitan Museum of American Art, New York       Through January 1, 2011 One word to describe the Met's major retrospective of the SoCal pioneer of conceptual art: "EDIT!," both in terms of the quantity and quality of the

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-67912627525476005512010-11-23T22:55:00.000-05:002010-11-23T22:55:07.741-05:00

Donn Zaretsky has posted on another article that accurately discusses the donor-friendly notice requirements under NY's version of UPMIFA. It also becomes apparent on reading the article how cumbersome it will be for institutions to comply with. For background see here.

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-32916539266433479542010-11-23T00:55:00.007-05:002010-11-23T22:57:15.717-05:00

A reader wrote to the Editor of The Art Newspaper this week calling for the need to have a public photo archive of looted antiquities to aide prospective buyers in their provenance research of potentially looted objects. When it comes to purchasing antiquities today, the volume of undocumented/ looted antiquities (the two terms have become synonymous) on the market is such that tainting an

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-39929177681432513382010-11-22T00:29:00.006-05:002010-11-22T00:34:13.892-05:00

PARIS. Artworld Salon reports on the Deloitte "Art & Finance" conference held at the end of last month. It highlights three themes: I agree with the first, disagree with the second and would modify the third. The final paragraph is by far the most astute: "before we continue to develop art into an investment vehicle (in whatever way), let's take a step back and think about what makes art

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-70601781881573037212010-11-20T23:28:00.002-05:002010-11-20T23:43:30.372-05:00

LONDON. This blog previously reported the staggering $85.9m sale of a Qianlong-era fish vase at Bainbridges auction house in London. Now Art Info has an interesting article on the "7 reasons why a gaudy fish vase broke a world record for Chinese Art." The last paragraph considers the alternative of "market juicing" as the reason behind the high price tag: "perhaps (goes the theory) there was

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-34117112994127451492010-11-20T18:07:00.004-05:002010-11-20T18:14:12.768-05:00

A German court has ruled that the Museum Schloss Moyland in North Rhine-Westphalia may not lawfully display a collection of its photographs of the late Joseph Beuys performing in 1964. According to The Art Newspaper, "the judge ruled that the pictures of the performance were an “incorrect deformation of the original performance” and by exhibiting them the museum had violated Beuys’ copyright."

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-80116839199072771572010-11-16T21:41:00.004-05:002010-11-16T21:49:13.719-05:00

According to Businessweek, "the Foundation [has] decided not to try to recover its own legal costs from the collector because a search turned up no assets." That's $7 million in legal costs that could have gone towards the Foundation's "charitable mission of promoting the visual arts and preserving the legacy of Andy Warhol." For background, click here.

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-85794990188758741722010-11-15T21:52:00.006-05:002010-11-15T22:09:08.055-05:00

NEW YORK. Art sales go virtual as big names back launch of exclusive site Art.sy. The site will monitor collectors' needs and tastes with the help of its "art genome technology" based on the technology of "custom music-curating site Pandora." NEW YORK. Collectors continue to embrace lighthearted art as Lichtenstein, Warhol, Koons and Calder top Christie's post-war/ contemporary evening sale...

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LONDON/BENEVENTO. The return of the Benevento Missal marks a milestone -- it "will be the first item of Nazi-era loot from a UK national museum to be restituted to its pre-war owner." Astonishingly, legal restrictions had prevented the enforcement of the Spoliation Advisory Panel's original decision in 2005 recommending that it be returned to its rightful owner. In the UK, artworks that form part

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-32733450477032071032010-11-13T01:33:00.004-05:002010-11-14T11:59:06.417-05:00

This blog (among others) has previously reported on how title insurance is "still not broadly accepted" in the art market, especially when compared to its prevalence in real estate transactions. Possibly refuting this view is the recent acquisition of Aris, the sole provider of title insurance for art sales, "by a major publicly traded insurance company, Argo Group, showing confidence in that

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-28534666255213886062010-11-11T22:50:00.002-05:002010-11-13T01:10:45.058-05:00

Non-profits are facing increasingly uncertain times as private donations on which they rely almost entirely for funding and gifted artworks are growing smaller by the day. The combined effect of the financial crisis and the shrinking demographic of wealthy donors due to low birthrates in the Depression era was already a major blow to institutions but add to that the anticipated tax reforms (

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-46474930059377610782010-11-11T01:59:00.008-05:002010-11-13T01:38:20.763-05:00

LONDON. A rock-crystal Fatimid ewer -- described as "the Holy Grail for any collector or museum of Islamic art" -- sold at Christie's for £3.2 million but was eventually exported from the UK to the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin with a price tag of £20 million. The export license application originally stated a value of £15 million for the ewer which the Export Reviewing Committee rejected for

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-87451202890316164432010-11-07T03:08:00.002-05:002010-11-07T11:33:08.731-05:00

NEW YORK. The November auctions have started and buyers have expressed how they are finding the art market "particularly competitive, even for works that are not considered top flight." Keep up-to-date with this week's auctions results by clicking on the links below: Christie's and Sotheby's auction sales in the middle of their estimates. Christie's "84-lot Impressionist and Modern evening sale

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-80524858908748293862010-11-07T02:41:00.006-05:002010-11-11T15:49:17.085-05:00

Of all the Chancery Court's rulings over the past few months in the ongoing Fisk litigation, the latest ruling this week was no less shocking. First, the Chancellor rejected the Crystal Bridges agreement as then-written and invited the Tennessee Attorney General to come up with a more donor-friendly alternative, which he did in accordance with the Court's decipherment at the time of the "donor's

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-78198445477435579142010-11-06T20:52:00.119-04:002010-11-11T00:27:45.009-05:00

People love numbers. Numbers are objective, informative (if accurate), concise and universal. They cut to the chase and tell us instantly what we need to know, not what we want to hear. As the proverbial saying goes, "numbers don't lie." Or do they? Based solely on an art market analyst's measurements of the Return of Capital Employed (RoCE) for 56 contemporary galleries in the UK, an article

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-16103387709233748092010-10-30T01:08:00.000-04:002010-10-30T01:08:38.748-04:00

A Tracey Emin forger has been sentenced to 16 months imprisonment by the Manchester Crown Court for making "at least 11 forgeries" and selling works on eBay for £26,000. Given the nature of some living artists' works today, a forgery of a contemporary work can be easier to create from a technical perspective than say a fake of an Old Master painting, especially since a forger is far more likely

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-66405367492492760882010-10-27T23:42:00.002-04:002010-10-28T22:38:24.810-04:00

To the East we go! As I've mentioned before, Paris and above all the East (Beijing, Hong Kong, Russia) are the new hotspots in the art world. Not only are the traditional art centers in the West feeling the pressure to compete with their younger Eastern counterparts, a taste for the East has also been palpable in recent auctions with a growing contingent of buyers demanding Chinese art. Below are

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-72655000805637813412010-10-26T00:43:00.001-04:002010-10-26T22:13:29.254-04:00

NEW YORK. The U.S. justice system is hardly the breeding ground for David and Goliath-type endings so when Joe Simon went up against the Warhol Foundation and Art Authentication Board all guns blazing, it was only a matter of time before "money, power and legal expertise" dictated the outcome of the litigation. Instead of limiting the complaint to challenging the Board's rejection on two

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-87190546794126280622010-10-25T23:46:00.002-04:002010-10-25T23:51:07.285-04:00

The Tennessee Attorney General filed last Friday a second proposal regarding the future of the Stieglitz collection. Background to and the Chancery Court's rejection of his first proposal can be found here and here (Fisk went on to revise its prospective agreement with the Crystal Bridges Museum in light of the Court's ruling). The AG's latest filing is the product of the establishment of a fund

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-62053840158163103642010-10-24T11:41:00.002-04:002010-10-30T00:13:46.845-04:00

NEW YORK. For those active or interested in the secondary market, former Sotheby's vice chair Emmanuel Di Donna is joining forces with London dealer Harry Blain to open the Blair di Donna gallery. The venture represents the teaming up of two artworld moguls -- Di Donna was with Sotheby's in New York for 17 years and Blain co-founded the London galleries Haunch of Venison (bought by Christie's in

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-57456852876567162322010-10-24T02:53:00.004-04:002010-10-27T23:53:42.724-04:00

Donn Zaretsky of The Art Law Blog points us in the direction of an insurance case about which party, the insurer or the insured, should get a stolen artwork when it's recovered years after the insurer made a payment in the amount of the policy's limit. Since in this particular instance the valid and enforceable written agreement governing the relationship between the parties had a "plain and

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-17346761002553557422010-10-24T02:51:00.001-04:002010-10-24T02:52:33.210-04:00

LONDON. As many had been fearfully anticipating for months, yesterday the British government announced that Arts Council England ("ACE") - "which distributes money to hundreds of arts venues, theatre groups and galleries" - is to have its budget cut by 29.6% (representing a £100 million cut in funds by 2014). National museums will take a 15% cut over the next four years assuming the ACE complies

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6902592804205735748.post-45803003421753418942010-10-23T20:45:00.000-04:002010-10-23T20:45:29.912-04:00

What's the difference between a "fake" and a "copy"? And what about an "exhibition-related copy" and an "exhibition copy"? A story on the Warhol Authentication Board's recent report on Hultén’s Warhol Brillo boxes may shed some light. Personally, I'm still a little confused.

Cristina del Riverohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711857513111682891noreply@blogger.com0