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Maybe someone can make "The Art of the Steal Part 2"

By Intellectual Property Law, Esq.

Fisk students held a vigil tonight in protest of the Tennessee Attorney General's plan to transfer the Stieglitz collection to the Frist Center (without any compensation flowing to Fisk).

Fisk President Hazel O?Leary says:

"This proposal was developed without an invitation to or participation by Fisk from the Attorney General, the Frist Center, MDHA, or the Tennessee Arts Commission. This so-called partnership between the Frist Center, the State and the Metropolitan Government is nothing more than the display of raw power in an undisguised attempt to steal this art from its rightful owner. We will use every ounce of our energy to oppose this proposal."

Where's the outrage? At least in the Barnes case the Foundation's own board voted to move the collection (and, of course, the Barnes continues to own the work; it just has a new home). Somehow that added up to theft to a lot of people. But here the work is just being taken from Fisk, against its will, in the name of some imagined "donor intent" (the notion that it more closely approximates O'Keeffe's 60-year old intent that the works go to the Frist Center year-round than kept at Fisk half the time). I don't get it.

Full post as published by The Art Law Blog on September 13, 2010 (boomark / email).