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April 9, 2012

Monday, April 09, 2012 - , No comments

Karl von Habsburg and Dr. Joris Kila Jointly Win 2012 ARCA Award for Art Protection and Security

Joris Kila (right) in Tripoli on 29 September
ARCA (the Association for Research into Crimes against Art) is pleased to announce the winners of its annual awards for the year 2012. ARCA is an international research group that promotes the study of art crime cultural heritage protection, registered as a 501c3 in the United States and an Associazione Culturale in Italy.

ARCA presents four annual awards.  Nominations are made by ARCA staff, trustees, and members of the editorial board of ARCA’s peer-reviewed publication, The Journal of Art Crime.  The winners are decided by a vote of the trustees, and are presented at ARCA’s annual conference, held in Amelia, Italy on June 23 and 24 of this year. For more information about ARCA or to attend its annual conference, please contact Lynda Albertson: lynda.albertson (at) artcrimeresearch.org.

ARCA Award for Art Protection and Security
Past winners: Francesco Rutelli (2009), Dick Drent (2010), Lord Colin Renfrew (2011)
Shortlisted nominees: Matthew Bogdanos, Laurie Rush
2012 joint winners: Karl von Habsburg and Joris Kila

Karl von Habsburg is president of the Association of National Committees of the BlueShield and, jointly with Dr. Joris Kila, he runs the International MilitaryCultural Resources Work Group.

Habsburg is a former member of the European Parliament for Austria, and has specialized in International Humanitarian Law and Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection. A former air force pilot, he still serves in the reserve of the Austrian armed forces as a key Cultural Property Protection Officer. He is vice president of the Austrian Society for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and a founder of Blue Shield Austria. In addition to being a frequent lecturer, he is an author of several publications on the subject of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection and Military Cultural Property Protection and has carried out multiple documentation missions in conflict zones.

Kila is chairman of the International Military Cultural Resources Work Group. He is a researcher at the Institute of Culture and History of the University ofAmsterdam, and a board member for civil-military relations with the WorldAssociation for the Protection of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage inTimes of Armed Conflict (WATCH), based in Rome. Additionally, he serves as a community fellow of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, is a member of the US Commands Cultural Historical Action Group and is Chair of the International Cultural Resources Working Group. Until recently he served as network manager and acting chairman of the cultural affairs dept. at the Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) Group North in the Netherlands.  In that capacity he undertook several cultural rescue missions in Iraq and FYROM (Macedonia).

Habsburg and Kila are jointly awarded for their long-term service to the protection of cultural heritage in conflict zones.

April 8, 2012

Sunday, April 08, 2012 - ,, 7 comments

Statistics on European Art Crime

by Dr. Ludo Block, Senior Investigator at Grant Thornton Forensic & Investigation Services Netherlands

When Poland held the European Union (EU) Presidency in the second half of 2011, Art Crime formed one of their priorities in the field of police cooperation. Among other things, this resulted in Council Conclusions on preventing and combating crime against cultural goods, which were adopted by the EU Council on 13 December 2011.

The Polish Presidency coordinated efforts in the Law Enforcement Working Group of the EU Council to collect statistics on Art Crime and the law enforcement responses on Art Crime in different EU member states. The table below shows some of the data collected, i.e. the number of offences between 2007 and 2010 as recorded in 20 of the 27 EU member states. The exact definitions of 'Art Crime offences'  of course differ between the EU member states, but the data does give some insight in the trends. Additionally, these data have not been previously collected and published together.

Number of Art Crime offences 2007-2010 in 20 European Union Member States:

Year
EU Member State

2007

2008

2009

2010
Austria
131
125
113
missing data
Belgium
229
223
252
175
Bulgaria
206
164
204
191
Cyprus
8
7
10
14
Czech Republic
370
639
1527
954
Denmark
57
62
50
82
Estonia
8
9
8
7
France
2714
2223
1751
1442
Greece
75
87
72
91
Spain
443
432
489
543
Netherlands
missing data
missing data
missing data
831
Lithuania
15
13
14
12
Latvia
46
(171 items stolen)
94
(222 items stolen)
79
(204 items stolen)
100
(318 items stolen)
Malta
9
8
9
6
Germany
2003
2265
2055
missing data
Poland
1132
776
814
804
Portugal
164
233
200
159
Slovakia
24
25
26
29
Slovenia
28
55
42
66
Italy
1085
1031
882
817
TOTAL
8747
8471
8597
6323

Update:  HT to Dr. Samuel Hardy of Conflict Antiquities who linked to the PDF report in his comments below.   Full report can be found here.


April 7, 2012

Saturday, April 07, 2012 - ,,, No comments

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011 Features Synopsis of ARCA's 2011 International Art Crime Conference

The Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime includes a Synopsis of ARCA's Third International Art Crime Conference in Amelia, Umbria, on July 9 and 10, compiled and edited by ARCA blog Editor-in-Chief Catherine Sezgin.

The synopsis features an introduction by ARCA Intern Kirsten Hower and features summaries of the panel speakers by Mark Durney, Founder of Art Theft Central, and ARCA Interns Molly Cotter, Hower, and Jessica Graham Nielsen.

Catherine Schofield Sezgin graduated “With Distinction” from the ARCA Master’s Certificate Program in International Art Crime Studies in Amelia, Italy, in 2010. She has an undergraduate degree in Finance from San Diego State University where she was a reporter and a news editor for the daily newspaper. She is currently the editor-in-chief of ARCA’s blog and writing an art crime mystery set in Amelia.

April 6, 2012

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The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Art Guard's Bill Anderson on Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID)

Bill Anderson, Partner in Art Guard, explains radio frequency identification tags (RFID) and art security in the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Radio frequency identification tags are a general term for a method of attaching radio waves to artworks with the intention to alert security personnel to any attempt to tamper or steal an artwork -- mostly paintings, Anderson writes, then continues to point out the strengths and weaknesses of such technology.

Ton Cremers of the Museum Security Network in his regular column for The Journal of Art Crime also wrote about RFID tags in the Fall 2010 issue.

You may read about RFID from Mr. Anderson's viewpoint by subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime here.

You may read other articles on the subject on the Washington Post ("Museums' fine art of protecting masterpieces") and in the New York Times ("Keeping Precious Artwork Safe").

April 5, 2012

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UNESCO Warns Mali's Cultural Heritage Sites Endangered

Old Towns of Djenné
(UNESCO)
On April 2, UNESCO's Director-General Irina Bokova "voiced concern about the risk posed by fighting posed around the World Heritage site of Timbuktu in the north of Mali and recalled the internationally recognized obligation of countries to safeguard their heritage in times of war."

According to BBC News, a recent coup in the West African country has brought fighting to Timbuktu, an important center of Islamic study with 700,000 manuscripts, many from Timbuktu's golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries, in approximately 60 private libraries.

Director-General Bokova identified Timbuktu's architectural wonders as the great mosques of Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahla.  Timbuktu was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1988.

In the press release, UNESCO reiterates that "according to the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Properties in the Event of Armed Conflict and Its Protocols, armies must refrain from using or damaging cultural heritage properties during times of war."

Bokova offered UNESCO's "expertise and experience to help Mali ensure the safeguarding of Timbuktu."
According to recent news reports, rebels have entered the site and shots have been heard there.  Mali has three other world heritage sites beside Timbuktu: The Old Towns of Djenné, the Cliff of Bandiagara (Land of the Dogons) and the Tomb of Askia.
Last year in March, Samuel Sidibé, Director of the National Museum of Mali, attended UNESCO's meeting in Paris that commemorated the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Convention.

April 4, 2012

Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - ,, No comments

Syrian Arab News Agency Reports Claims by Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums that World Heritage Sites in Syria Suffered Attacks by Terrorists

"The oasis where the Temple of Bel stands"/
Istanbul Archaeological Museum

On the same day, CBS News Correspondent Clarrisa War reported that U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with delegates from 70 countries at a meeting in Istanbul to "support the opposition" [or what the Syrian government calls "terrorists"] to the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.  CBS News has reported that the U. S. pledges $12 million to Syria's rebels and reports that the Syrian Regime won't back down.

According to Bloomberg News today, a "United Nations team is headed to Damascas to discuss deploying unarmed peacekeepers after the Syrian president agreed to an April 10 cease-fire."

According to SANA's online report, the world heritage sites in Damascus (the Ancient City of Damascus), Aleppo, Old Bosra, Palmyra, Citadel of Saladin, and Crac des Chevaliers were "targeted by the terrorist groups."

Palmyra also has a sacred site, The Temple of Bel, in honor of the Babylonian god Bel-Marduk.

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