Copyright Law

Lost

Posted on August 27, 2008
The Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers reports that a Leger painting "has been lost - perhaps unintentionally thrown out - by Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Cultural Center."The school has already collected on an insurance claim for the work, "in the area" of $2...

"The central legal issue, obviously, is who owns the work today"

Posted on August 27, 2008
Obviously.This week's Village Voice has more on the Martín Ramirez lawsuits:"The Ramirez family argues that because the artist had been institutionalized, he didn't have the capacity to administer his affairs, including giving away his work. And [Dr...

Oh Gee

Posted on August 25, 2008
The Gee's Bend lawsuits have apparently been resolved. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.See here for the background.

Into the Woods

Posted on August 25, 2008
In today's New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff profiles architect Lebbeus Woods.The article doesn't mention it, but Woods was involved in one of the more high profile copyright infringement lawsuits of recent years:"Consider the case of Lebbeus Woods vs...

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Tattoos and Copyright

Posted on August 25, 2008
Everything you ever wanted to know, via Rebecca Tushnet's 43(B)log.

Bitter

Posted on August 22, 2008
I was flipping through the Fisk University appellate brief, and this passage caught my eye (p. 26):"It is with bitter irony that Fisk notes that the proposal by Crystal Bridges, which the Chancellor found in September 2007 to be clearly superior to the pending settlement agreement ...

Today's Iowa Pollock Commentary

Posted on August 22, 2008
Wall Street Journal leisure and arts page editor Eric Gibson in today's paper: "With luck, the chorus of condemnation will forestall any Pollock sale by the University of Iowa."Lee Rosenbaum cheers him on.Responding to this post of mine yesterday, Richard Lacayo agrees that "some sales are justifiable" -- but thinks this is not one of them...

"To me, he is a living legend"

Posted on August 22, 2008
In today's Wall Street Journal, Kelly Crow profiles FBI undercover art-crime investigator Robert Wittman, who's retiring later this year after "two decades impersonating shady dealers and befriending thieves."Dan Kois says "there's everything you need for a movie: guns, danger, sexy naked paintings, and institutional dismissal ? the FBI apparently ignored Wittman's requests for more agents for years...

Don't Mention It

Posted on August 22, 2008
The Washington Post: "Managers of a downtown office building yanked a sculpture called 'Unmentionables . . . then and now' from an exhibition last week after tenants complained that the art was inappropriate. The offending art, by Joyce Zipperer, ....

Rule Utilitarianism in Iowa City

Posted on August 21, 2008
Responding to this Felix Salmon post, Richard Lacayo makes a more sophisticated case for the no-no-never position on deaccessioning:"[T]he problem with selling the Pollock ... is that it would represent a further worsening of the (so far limited) trend by colleges to look at their campus art collections as assets that can be stripped and sold off to pay for other needs...

"A terrible idea"

Posted on August 20, 2008
Richard Lacayo is back, and has some thoughts on the Iowa-Pollock controversy: "All the same, the Board of Regents is still going forward with its effort to determine the painting's market value. There's no deadline set for when it has to report back with the magic number, but we should all be watching...

"The prospect of drilling in the lake requires more than the usual attention to the sensitivities of the site"

Posted on August 20, 2008
ARTINFO.com reports that "the Utah Division of Oil, Gas, & Mining has refused a request from the Pearl Montana Exploration company to drill for oil near Robert Smithson's earthwork sculpture Spiral Jetty, constructed in 1970. In a letter from the State of Utah's Department of Natural Resources to the company, obtained by the community group the Friends of Great Salt Lake, it states inadequacies in the application and notes, 'The prospect of drilling in the lake requires more than the usual attention to the sensitivities of the site...

Recovery

Posted on August 20, 2008
"Brazilian police have recovered the second of two Pablo Picasso works stolen from São Paulo's Pinacoteca do Estado museum on June 12."

Guilty (UPDATED)

Posted on August 19, 2008
Robert Mardirosian has been found guilty of possessing stolen property. "The 74-year-old Mardirosian faces a maximum of 10 years in prison at sentencing, scheduled for Nov. 18."UPDATE: More from the Boston Globe here.

The View From London

Posted on August 19, 2008
The U.K. Independent had a story this weekend on the Barnes saga: "Horror at the move stretches far beyond Latch's Lane. To the New York Times's Nicolai Ouroussoff, it is 'a crime', while the New Republic critic Jed Perl describes the pro-Parkway regime as 'cultural commissars'...

One Charge Dismissed

Posted on August 18, 2008
The Boston Globe reports that the judge has thrown out the "transportation of stolen property" charge against lawyer Robert Mardirosian. He still faces a charge of possessing or concealing stolen property. The case was scheduled to go to the jury today.

Political Question

Posted on August 18, 2008
Lee Rosenbaum cheers on PA Attorney General candidate John Morganelli.You can read Morganelli's full statement about the Barnes situation here.

Today's Iowa News

Posted on August 17, 2008
The latest from the Des Moines Register on the possible Pollock deacessioning. Two interesting things, I thought:1. U of I Regent Michael Gartner responds to Tyler Green's conflict of interest concerns: "Gartner called Green's blog post 'bizarre' and said he and his wife aren't conspiring to bring the Pollock painting to Des Moines...

Broken Glass

Posted on August 15, 2008
Yesterday I mentioned Noah Charney's four categories of art crime, the first of which is vandalism. Today's New York Times has news of a stained-glass window by Marc Chagall that was shattered by vandals in France over the weekend at the Saint-Étienne Cathedral.

More Iowa Reactions

Posted on August 15, 2008
Derek Fincham: "I find it very interesting that many of the calls for anti-deaccessioning are very contrary to the kind of art cosmopolitanism and sharing of art and culture that many have advocated, notably James Cuno."The Art Market Monitor: "One of their proposals was a sale to another institution with rights to display the work...

"Art crime now funds, and is funded by, organized crime?s other enterprises, from the drug and arms trades to terrorism"

Posted on August 14, 2008
Noah Charney on "how the four main categories of art crime influence the art market."

"Mural doesn't belong to 'the people of Iowa' -- it belongs to nobody, or to everybody"

Posted on August 14, 2008
Felix Salmon weighs in on the Iowa Pollock:"Some paintings belong not to 'the people of Iowa' so much as to the people of the world, and belong in a world-class collection. Which, frankly, the University of Iowa Museum of Art isn't. Remember that the idea was never to simply sell Mural off to the highest bidder; it was to sell it to another museum...

Ramírez Lawsuit

Posted on August 14, 2008
The Los Angeles Times's Mike Boehm reports on a fascinating dispute involving the work of artist Martín Ramírez:"A bicoastal legal battle has erupted over who owns 17 drawings by Martín Ramírez, whose artworks, created while he lived in California state mental institutions until his death in 1963, now fetch six-figure sums...

Fisk Appeal

Posted on August 14, 2008
Nashville Public Radio has a brief summary of the appeal just filed by Fisk University in the O'Keeffe case: "Among other arguments in the appeal briefing, Fisk says O?Keeffe always wanted to see the collection in a major museum. That?s why if she were alive, attorney say, she wouldn?t mind the school selling a 50-percent stake in the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas...

"Opponents to monetizing the Pollock have been forcefully vocal"

Posted on August 13, 2008
I like Lee Rosenbaum's one-line description of the general reaction to the news that the University of Iowa was considering maybe, possibly, perhaps finding out what it could get for its Pollock in a sale to a public institution that would agree to lend it back to the school from time to time: "bemoaners of the lost art have been noisily catastrophizing...

Barnesstorming (UPDATED)

Posted on August 13, 2008
The battle over the Barnes has apparently become an issue in the Pennsylvania Attorney General campaign. Democratic candidate John Morganelli says, by not opposing the move, incumbent Tom Corbett "failed to represent the wishes of Dr. Barnes and this community...

"Methodology can devolve into mind mush"

Posted on August 13, 2008
András Szántó has some thoughts on the "Galenson Ranking," discussed last week here: "This exercise in solipsistic reductionism is a bit like mistaking the warped reflection in a fun-house mirror with reality itself. Even that may be giving too much credit to the theory...

The Kingsland Saga

Posted on August 12, 2008
The FBI is now saying that "at least 20 pieces" from the collection William Kingsland left behind are stolen, including a million dollar Giacometti bust. They've gone ahead and posted photos online "in the hope that the rightful owners will come forward and claim the works...

"It's not a can of peas. We get into these very strange situations when we start thinking about our museum in an asset- or economic-oriented way"

Posted on August 12, 2008
Tyler Green interviews the director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art about the school's recent announcement that it would look into what a (certain kind of) sale of the Jackson Pollock it owns might bring.They value the work for insurance purposes at $100 million.

More Iowa

Posted on August 12, 2008
Tyler Green has more today on the brewing deaccessioning controversy at the University of Iowa. (He refers to the current proposal to find out what the painting at issue might be worth as an "assessment/possible forced deaccessioning.")Among other things, Tyler is concerned about conflicts of interest in that the wife of the regent "who first called for the university to explore a forced deaccessioning" is on the board of the Des Moines Art Center: "Gartner's position with the university's board of regents and his wife's at DMAC raises serious questions about whether Gartner is trying to leverage a forced deaccessioning of the UIMA Pollock to a museum in which his wife is active...

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