Blog Subscription via Follow.it

June 18, 2014

Christos Tsirogiannis Phd to lead panel on "The Many Faces of the Illegal Heritage Trade" for ARCA's Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference June 28

The second panel of ARCA's Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference will be led by Christos Tsirogiannis and presented by:

Papyri, collectors and the antiquities market: a survey and some questions
Roberta Mazza, PhD University of Bologna Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Classics and Ancient History, University of Manchester Research Fellow, John Rylands Research Institute – John Rylands Library

Using open-source data to identify participation in the illicit antiquities trade: A case study on the intercommunal conflict in Cyprus, 1963-1974
Sam Hardy, DPhil University of Sussex Illicit antiquities trade researcher Research Associate, Centre for Applied Archaeology, University College London

The Dikmen Conspiracy: The Illicit Removal, Journey and Trade of Looted Ecclesiastical Antiquities from Occupied Cyprus
Christiana O’Connell-Schizas, LLB University of Kent, LPC University of Law Baker & McKenzie, Riyadh

June 17, 2014

ARCA's Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference to open June 28th with panel highlighting "Recent US and EU Investigations"

The 2014 ARCA Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference will open with:

The Fall of the House of Knoedler: Fakes, Deception and Naiveté
Presenter: James C Moore, Esquire, Arbitrator and mediator of commercial disputes; Formerly, partner and trial lawyer with large New York law firm and president of New York State Bar Association

Hello Dalí: Anatomy of a Modern Day Art Theft Investigation
Presenter: Jordan Arnold, Esquire, K2 Intelligence; Former Assistant District Attorney and Head, Financial Intelligence Unit, New York County District Attorney’s Office

The Gurlitt Case: German and international responses to the legal and ethical questions to ownership rights in looting cases
Presenters: Duncan Chappell, PhD Lawyer and Criminologist, Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney and Saskia Hufnagel, PhD Lecturer in Criminal Law; Queen Mary University of London Rechtsanwalt – Fachanwalt Strafrecht, Hufnagel und Partner

The Gurlitt Case: An Inside View From Christopher A. Marinello, Lawyer and Representative for the Heirs of Paul Rosenberg
Presenter: Christopher A. Marinello, Esq Director and Founder, Art Recovery International

The Knoedler Case: NYT's Cohen questions how art dealers weren't suspicious when artist signature was misspelled

Journalist Patricia Cohen in her June 11 article in The New York Times, "Note to Forgers: Don't Forget to Spell Check", says the misspelled artist signature was a clue:
When angry collectors started suing Knoedler & Company for selling dozens of multimillion-dollar forgeries, the gallery’s former president, Ann Freedman, insisted that she and her colleagues had had no reason to think that any of the paintings were counterfeit. “If Ann Freedman had any questions about these works, she and her husband would not have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in them,” her lawyer, Nicholas A. Gravante Jr., said of the paintings attributed to modern masters like Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. Now, newly released documents in a continuing civil case show that at least one of the works bought in 2000 by Ms. Freedman herself contained a prominent clue that something was awry. The artist’s signature was spelled incorrectly: Pollok instead of Pollock.
You can finish reading Ms. Cohen's article online for The New York Times.

Attorney James C. Moore will discuss the Knoedler case ("The Fall of the House of Knoedler: Fakes, Deception and Naiveté") on June 28 at ARCA's Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference in Amelia.

History of Art Crime: Fabio Isman's 1992 reporting of the discovery of Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ" in Dublin

The National Gallery of Ireland's "The Taking of Christ"
Caravaggio, 1602
by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

Jonathan Harr's The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece (Random House, New York, 2005) -- includes the story of how Fabio Isman, an Italian journalist who regularly attends ARCA's Art Crime Conference in Amelia (and a key advisor to ARCA), broke the news that a restorer at the National Gallery of Ireland, Sergio Benedetti, had found Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ" (1602) at the residence of the Society of Jesus in Dublin.

Harr recounts how in 1992, Isman, an investigative journalist with Rome's daily newspaper Il Messaggero, heard from scholar Sir Denis Mahon that another Caravaggio masterpiece had been found. Mahon would did not specify the work or the location, but Isman persisted in ferreting out the information by calling 'one Caravaggio scholar after another' and chancing upon 'a Caravaggio show with no Caravaggios except for The Supper at Emmaus, which Dublin had somehow managed to get on loan from London.'

This book describes how scholars hunt for authenticity through archives and publications, the differences between record keeping in Britain and Italy, and the competition amongst researchers. A perfect warmup to ARCA's Conference June 27-29 in Amelia.

ARCA Lecturer Dorit Straus Elected to Board of Directors for AXA Art

Art insurance specialist AXA Art announced last week the election of fine art insurance expert Dorit Straus to its Board of Directors:
Ms. Straus is an accomplished professional with a successful career in providing solutions on art and insurance matters, globally. She is widely recognized for her expertise in insurance and risk transfer needs of museums and cultural institutions, auction houses, galleries and private collectors. She has broad proficiency in legal issues relating to confiscation, repatriation and provenance.... For over 30 years, Dorit Straus has been an important contributor to the fine art insurance industry. She has authored commentary on the implications of art theft on the insurance industry and on insuring art. She currently serves on the faculty of ARCA (the Association for Research on Crimes Against Art) teaching a course on art crime and insurance in Amelia, Italy.
Ms. Straus will teach "Insurance Claims and the Art Trade" in July. She also recently joined Chris Marinello at Art Recovery International.

June 16, 2014

Monday, June 16, 2014 - ,,, No comments

Art or crime? Palais de Tokyo exhibits graffiti artists who have been arrested for their works

Artdaily.org's Hugo Vitrani (who is identified as a "curator") has written here about the graffiti exhibit, LASCO PROJECT #3, at the Palais de Tokyo, pointing to both the awards and the arrest records of some of the artists:
Successions of black windows, balconies, shadows, satellite dishes: Evol (b. 1970, lives and works in Berlin) highjacks urban space with his stencils of miniature housing projects, placing the peripheral, the invisible, at the heart of cities and institutions. His installation work was awarded the Prix Arte/ Slick in 2010. His scattering of buildings in ruins is a pointed comment on the failure of an architectural and political utopia. Arrested by the police’s anti-graffiti task force in 2012, Cokney (b. 1985, lives and works in Paris) was tried and was fined over 200,000 euro for his illegal paintings on trains and subway cars, a decision which he contested. This incident, and the publicity it received, compelled the artist to eschew the secrecy and clandestinity typically associated with graffiti art, paradoxically allowing him to own up to—and even lay claim—to his work. A celebrated tattoo artist, Cokney worked at Seen (NYC) before setting up at Hand In Glove (Paris). In his installation at the Palais de Tokyo, Cokney combines paintings with the estimates, complaints and reports generated during his trial, thus emphasizing that the police archives and the judicial examination of his work constitute an integral part of his production. More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/70804/Palais-de-Tokyo-in-Paris-brings-together-the-works-of-various-graffiti-and-street-artists#.U58cPJSwKwI[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org
In 2012, Fernanda Hinke wrote in Underground Paris about another exhibit on graffiti culture, including an explanation about urbex -- the creation of "artistic interventions" in abandoned spaces or places forbidden to the public such as the Mines of Paris.

Related topics: Caitlin Willis wrote about graffiti in contemporary Rome in The Journal of Art Crime; Harvard's Robert Darnton spoke about graffiti at the Getty in 2011; and this post discussed the exhibit at the Geffen in 2011.

June 12, 2014

Report from ARCA Amelia '14: Inside the lecture hall, Dick Ellis on art investigations and Tom Flynn on the art market; outside: students explore Narni and Amelia

by Paula Carretero, ARCA '14 Intern

Friday, June 30th marked the official start of the 2014 Graduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, with the arrival of the students to Italy. Students managed to arrive and find their way from Rome to Amelia after navigating the occasionally chaotic Italian transport infrastructure. The bus strike going on that day for sure made it interesting for the students, but everyone arrived safely to the welcome cocktail at La Locanda del Conte Nitto , one of the restaurants in town that, friendly as always, took in all the ARCA students as a welcome to the start of the summer. Over the weekend, students started exploring the city and guided tours were organized during which some of the city’s most wonderful corners were discovered. Among them, students walked into the centro storico of the town, wandering through the medieval streets and exploring some wonderful places: such as the Duomo, the Roman cisterns, and the Teatro Sociale
"Interns in the Cisterns" by Camille Knop

Week one of classes started with Dr. Tom Flynn, a RICS-Accredited Art Market and Art Appraisal lecturer at Kingston University in London.  His course in this year's program was “The International Art Market and Associated Risk.” Though the first half of the week, students explored the history and evolution of the art market; how early collections were gathered in the Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Kunstkabinett, Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, and wonder-rooms); the mechanisms of auctions houses, dealers and collectors; and issues on the value of art. The vast experience of Dr. Flynn, and the relaxed atmosphere in class, helped in creating interesting debates that were enriched by the multiple backgrounds of students from all over the world.

Dick Ellis took over the second half of the week with the course on “Art Policing, Protection and Investigating.” The founder of Scotland Yard’s Art & Antiquities squad introduced the students to the world of art theft, covert operations, money laundering using art, and the mechanism of organized crime as well as thieves motivations to steal art. By the end of the week, students were blown away by the vast experience of Professor Ellis and his generosity in sharing his wisdom with the class.

View from the top of Narni (Photo by 
ARCA Intern Camille Knop)
After this first week full of activities, and with the students’ heads full of plenty of new and valuable knowledge, a well-deserved weekend break arrived. Some of the students, using their remaining energy, took part in a trip to Narni on Saturday, a nearby town. The students enjoyed discovering and walking around the medieval-like streets of the town and went to visit some of the most important monuments like Rocca Albornoz, a 14th century fortress that became the home of popes and cardinals. In Subterranean Narni, the guided tour included the old convent of San Domenico, ancient Roman water tanks, prison cells used during the Inquisition, and 12th century frescoes in a medieval church (here's a link to an article on archaeologist Robert Nini who discovered the former Benedictine abbey in 1979 through an entrance from an old man's garden).

The ones who stayed in Amelia did not miss the chance to explore in their own way. Some of them went to the movie club organized at Chiostro Boccarini each weekend and started getting to know and interact with the Amerini, the citizens of Amelia, to confirm that they are as friendly as their reputation says. Finally, and to help fight the hot temperatures that are starting to arrive, some of the students spent some time hanging out around the pool house and recovering energy for the upcoming weeks. Summer has just arrived and courses are just beginning, but many other adventures are yet to come.

June 9, 2014

Art or Crime: Performance artist Deborah De Robertis re-enacts Courbet's "L'origine du monde" in Musee d'Orsay

Performance artist Deborah De Robertis in Musée d'Orsay
(Luxemburger Wort, screenshot of YouTube video)
by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

As reported by Luxemburger Wort last week in "Luxembourg artist flashes Paris museum-goers", performance artist Deborah De Robertis exposed her female genitalia in front of Gustave Courbet's L'origine du monde (1866) in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris on May 29:
Dressed in a gold sequin dress, the artist walked into the museum on May 29, sat down below the painting and spread her legs to reveal her vagina in a reflection of the artwork, which shows a woman's genitals and abdomen under the title The Origin of the World. A museum guard alerted police who took De Robertis into custody for indecent exposure. However, the prosecution decided not to press charges and the Luxembourg artist was released. Speaking to wort.lu, De Robertis explained that her performance was not simply an act of exhibitionism, but a reflected action, creating a new tableau in play with the original artwork. An invitation to the performance, distributed to a limited number of people, said that De Robertis aims to destabilise power relations, as well as reflecting on relationships between men and women, and artists and control over their work.
The video De Robertis posted on YouTube shows the performance artist somberly performing while two security guards engage with the artist and a supportive -- as evidenced by their clapping -- audience. Museum officials are shown to be clearing the room while the artist performs.

Here another video shows the new gallery at the Musée d'Orsay dedicated to the larger paintings by Gustave Courbet -- and a close up of the controversial L'origine du monde which entered the French national collection in 1995. It was originally in the collection of Khalil-Bey, an Ottoman diplomat and art collector. Last year, the foremost Courbet scholar claimed to have found the "face" of "L'Origine du Monde".

Art Crime with Judge Arthur Tompkins on New Zealand's National Radio: The 1961 Theft of Francisco de Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington

Francisco de Goya, The Duke of Wellington, 1812-1814
oil on mahogany, 64.3 x 52.4 cm
Judge Arthur Tompkins, who teaches "Art in War" for ARCA's certificate program, appears monthly with Kim Hill on New Zealand's National public radio. This month, he discusses the 1961 theft from the National Gallery of London of Francisco de Goya's Duke of Ellington. Previous shows covered the Four Horses of San Marcos and the Ghent Altarpiece.

Judge Tompkins talks about the myth of the theft, the suspected "real" thief, and the legislation that followed.

Here's a link to the painting at the National Gallery of London where you can find it on display in Room 39.

And here's a direct link to the broadcast.

Art Detective: the website designed to identify works of art in UK public collections

Here's a link to a website with an intriguing name ("Art Detective") by the Public Catalogue Foundation at The University of Glasgow who's mission is to identify works of art in art collections in the United Kingdom:
Art Detective aims to improve knowledge of the UK’s public art collection. It is a free-to-use online network that connects public art collections with members of the public and providers of specialist knowledge. Art Detective Launched in March 2014, Art Detective comprises a digital network built on top of the Public Catalogue Foundation’s (PCF) existing art object database. Art Detective is accessed through the Your Paintings website and the PCF website.
www.LostArt.de posted about Art Detective here