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October 18, 2012

Rotterdam Art Heist: ARCA in the Media

Here's a few links to ARCA associates recently published in the media:

In Noah Charney's "Secret History of Art" column for artinfo.com, the founder of ARCA writes on "Rotterdam Art Heist Likely for Ransom".

In The New York Times, ARCA Trustee Anthony Amore, Security Director for The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, writes as an Op-Ed Contributor about "Debunking the Myth of Glamorous Art Thieves" in "No 'Thomas Crown Affair'".

Niels Rigter of Metro published an article online here (in Dutch, loosely translated into English) quotes ARCA's CEO Lynda Albertson (also pictured) about the difficultly of selling stolen art.

Bloomberg's Catherine Hickley article, "Art Thieves Struggle to Convert Monet, Picasso Into Cash", includes an interview with ARCA CEO Lynda Albertson.

ARCA Instructor Tom Flynn's blog "artknows" in "Will we never learn from art theft? Value is in the eye of the beholder" points out that  stealing art is done for all sorts of reasons -- especially if the paintings are displayed in buildings that are "woefully deficient in security"as pointed out by Dutch security consultant Ton Cremers.

2 comments:

How secure are museums in the Western world?

More secure than not, but as this case exemplifies, there is always room for improvement if a museum's funding will allow for it.

That security though needs to be balances with accessibility. Museums should not become bunkers in the name of security. They exist not as giant repositories of artwork or history but as places for humanity to learn about its humanities. One of our main tasks (not only in western museums but in museums around the world) is not only to preserve works of art, look after them, hang them properly and protect them, but to work with the public to make our houses accessible while we protect these objects for future generations.