"There is a Crack in Everything"

In Brief

• Skin of a Living Artist SOLD!

  An auction of the tattooed skin of Wolfgang Flatz, an Austrian performance artist, was scheduled to take place in Munich on February 8th, 2024. However, the auction was canceled after a Swiss collector purchased all 12 pieces for a “seven-figure sum.” The collector will receive photographs of the lots until the tattooed skin is transferred to them following Flatz’s death. The auction was to be led by Christie’s auctioneer and chairman, Dirk Boll, and was advertised as a “unique opportunity” and “the first time an artist has sold his real body as a work of art during his lifetime.” The sale raises ethical and legal issues, many of which have not been dealt with yet. Read more here. (HJ)

• Over Restitution: Quiet Return of a Chagall painting

  In February 2024, the Museum of Modern Art acknowledged that, three years ago, it returned a Chagall painting, Over Vitebsk (1913), to the heirs of the German gallery which previously owned the piece. This case of Nazi-looted art restitution is unique because MoMA received $4 million in compensation for giving it back, in an arrangement negotiated by Mondex Corporation, a restitution company. The heirs have since sold the piece for $24 million, and one of the heirs is in a legal battle with Mondex over the company’s $8.5 million fee. MoMA stated that the money it received is being used to support a provenance research fund named after the principal owner of the German gallery, Patrick Matthiesen. Read more here. (HJ)

• UNESCO's Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Artifacts in the works

  UNESCO is planning to open a $2.5 million virtual museum of stolen cultural artifacts in 2025 in collaboration with Interpol, whose database of stolen cultural objects lists more than 52,000 artifacts. The virtual museum will contain 3D images of the artifacts, accompanied by materials explaining their cultural significance. Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO’s assistant director general for culture, stated that, contrary to regular museums which aim to expand their collections, the goal for this virtual museum is to eventually disappear, as the collection will shrink when items are recovered. The project is meant to raise “public awareness of trafficking and the unique importance of cultural heritage.” Read more here. (HJ) We would love to be involved!

• LA Museum Returns Historical Artifacts to Ghana

  UCLA’s Fowler Museum has formally handed over artifacts taken during the Sagrenti War of 1874. Seven handcrafted Asante artifacts were returned 150 years later to their former owners in Kumasi, Ghana. When the museum examined the provenance of its African art collection, it uncovered the fact that these objects were stolen or exported  by the British during the war. The Fowler’s director stated the museum has an “ethical responsibility to the community of origin” when it comes to objects in the museum’s custody. Among the objects repatriated were gold pieces of jewelry, an ornamental chair, and an elephant tail whisk. This is not the first time the Fowler has returned an item to its original owner, but this is its first international return. The museum intends to put on a display of replications of those Asante artifacts that  have been returned. Read more here. (OZ) We have an article about this coming out soon!

• Those them hardy Brooklyn Institutions! Brooklyn Museum to turn 200

  The Brooklyn Museum is celebrating its 200th anniversary and installing a number of events and exhibitions this fall. The museum will put on its largest show thus far with a major group of Brooklyn artists. “The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” will open on October 4, and will be an open-call, invitation-style show featuring approximately 300 local artists and makers. The museum’s bicentennial year will celebrate artists of color, indigenous art, and historically marginalized groups. Read more here. (OZ)

• Report from the Smitsonian’s Human Remains Task Force

  A majority of the human remains held by the Smithsonian Institution were acquired under unjust circumstances in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Human Remains Task Force has published a report offering recommendations on correcting these injustices. The report highlights the importance of informed consent from the deceased or their descendants before collecting, displaying, or using the remains. Furthermore, the report recommends that the Smithsonian return any remains taken without consent or create a process for respectfully burying the remains. So far, the Smithsonian has repatriated more than 5,000 individuals’ remains. Read more here. (EJS)

• Restoration and Transfer of Angkor Archaeological Park

  On January 31, the World Monuments Fund (“WMF”) transferred control of three sites in the Angkor Archaeological Park to the Cambodian government. The WMF is celebrating 35 years of conservation and “capacity-building” efforts at the park. Angkor is one of the most important archeological sites in Southeast Asia. It is roughly 250 square miles and contains some of the most advanced pre-industrial urban architecture. But, following the 1970 Cambodian Civil War, Angkor Park was heavily looted and the WMF became involved in the conservation endeavors. By 2004, Angkor was removed from the list of endangered heritage sites. Read more here. (EJS)

• Listen to the Experts: As The Art Market Shifts, Art Law Remains Stable

  According to Pierre Valentin, a leading art lawyer in the UK, the art market is not shrinking but rather shifting. Following Brexit, the market is moving away from the UK and towards Europe and the United States. There has been an increase in litigation around issues of new technology where both the risk and potential losses are enormous. Copyright law is also facing a major shift, as it was initially framed before images were widely available to all (e.g., through digital media), as they are now. Furthermore, even if a recession occurs, art law will likely still be booming,  as investors will attempt to recoup losses through the courts. Thus, it appears that the world of art law is a stable gig, regardless of how the market behaves. Read more here. (EJS)

• Yippee: Opie painting returns more than 50 years after theft

  John Opie painting, The Schoolmistress, has been returned to Dr. Francis Wood after it was stolen by mobsters in July 1969. On July 25, 1969, three men broke into Wood’s father’s home and stole the painting. During one of the men’s trials, he confessed to stealing the painting and testified that he was acting under the direction of then-New Jersey State Senator Anthony Imperiale, but these claims were never corroborated. Between 1969 and the late 1980s, the location of the painting was unknown but it was believed to be in the possession of organized crime members. In 1989, a Utah accounting firm’s now-deceased client purchased a home in Florida belonging to a convicted mobster, and the painting was included in that purchase. In December 2021, as the accounting firm was liquidating their deceased client’s assets, they discovered the painting and contacted the FBI. FBI Special Agent France returned the painting to Dr. Francis Wood on January 11, 2024. Read more here. (EJS)

• The U.K. Amends Laws Allowing International Repatriation

  The United Kingdom has altered an artifact repatriation law to preserve the government approval process for museums’ return of objects. The Charities Act of 2022 allowed charities, including national museums, to deaccession objects when faced with a moral obligation to do so. On Feb. 2, the head of the UK’s Arts & Heritage agency, Lord Parkinson, announced that national museums and galleries would be excluded from the sections of the Act allowing them to restitute objects to foreign countries. This move returns the power of restitution to the hands of the U.K. government. Read more here. (HEG)

• Turkey’s fight for 6,000-year-old Idol ends

  The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has denied the Republic of Turkey’s legal ownership of a 6,000-year-old marble icon artifact k. Turkey brought a case against the auction house Christie’s and the collector Michael Steinhardt, calling for the return of the icon, titled the Stargazer. The Republic cited the 1906 Ottoman Decree, which makes any national patrimony object acquired after 1906 in Turkey the property of the Republic. The court decided against Turkey, citing the fact that the country’s thirty years of knowledge about the object’s absence from Turkey  made it “inexcusably delayed in taking action.” Read more here. (HEG) This and other case can be found in our Case Law Corner DB. Here is more on this Case, from a 2021 Review.

• Tove gone Rogue: Australian Art Dealer Charged With Theft 

  Tove Langridge, the Instagram-famous owner of TW Fine Art Gallery, was charged with nine counts of theft by the Queensland Police. After obtaining search warrants, the police raided several properties tied to the dealer and seized 20 objects. Langridge has dealt with legal troubles for years after repeated instances of failing to return art on consignment and not paying artists their appropriate sales proceeds. This marks the first time that Australia has charged an art dealer for this form of theft. If convicted, Langridge could face up to five years in prison. Read more here. (HEG)

• Des Moines Art Center to Dismantle Own Installation 

  American artist Mary Miss’ environmental installation “Greenwood Pond: Double Site,” created for the Des Moines Art Center (DMAC), is set to be dismantled. While the museum agreed in its original 1994 contract with Miss to “reasonably protect” the public sculpture, Iowan weather appears to have taken its toll despite consistent repairs. According to the DMAC, it would cost $2.7 million to completely repair the installation, an unfeasible cost for the center. Miss believes  the decision is a sign of a lack of attention for both environmental art and women artists. Read more here. (HEG)

   

• Stolen Picasso and Chagall Found in Belgium Basement

  Belgium authorities uncovered two stolen paintings from a watch dealer’s basement in Antwerp. The paintings, Picasso’s Tête (1971) and Chagall’s L’homme en prière (1970), were stolen from an art dealer’s home in Tel Aviv 14 years ago. The authorities were given notice that the watch dealer was planning on selling the paintings, valued at 1 million dollars at the time they were stolen. The paintings were found without any damage. Read more here. (SN)

• Former German Museum Employee Sentenced to Prison for Stealing and Selling Paintings

  A former employee at the Deutsches Museum in Bavaria was sentenced to prison for stealing four paintings from 2016 to 2018. The museum employee, whose name is protected under German privacy laws, stole a painting by Franz von Stuck, replaced it with a forged work and then sold the original. The worker also stole three paintings from the depot and sold two of them via a Munich auction house, pretending he received the paintings from his family. A provenance researcher noticed the forged Stuck work when examining the painting and then discovered three empty frames for the other works. The thief earned over €49,000 for the sale of the Stuck painting and €4,500 and €7,000 for the other two works. The thief had no prior criminal record and was sentenced to 1 year and 9 months in prison and ordered to pay €60,000 in damages. Read more here. (OZ)

   

• Stolen Van Gogh Painting Anonymously Returned

  Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, an 1884 painting by Vincent van Gogh, has been returned to the Groninger Museum. The painting was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands on March 30, 2020, during a dramatic late-night art heist. Its whereabouts were unknown for years, until an art detective anonymously received the work on his doorstep late last year. The painting was valued between $3.5 to $6.5 million and was passed around between underground criminal groups. The picture is in the process of being restored at the Rotterdam museum and will be on public display starting on March 29. Read more here. (OZ)

• Repatriation Ceremony of Two Thai Artifacts From the United States to Thailand

  On February 4, 2024, the Thai Minister of Culture announced the repatriation of two artifacts from the United States to Thailand. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will repatriate the Golden Boy statue of Hindu deity Shiva and a statue of a kneeling female figure to Thailand in May 2024. The Royal Thai Consulate-General in New York will facilitate the repatriation while the museum will pay the repatriation expenses. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made a public promise to return over a dozen ancient artifacts to Cambodia and Thailand, following the exposition of its connection to Douglas Latchford, who was accused of selling looted antiquities. This represents an important step towards restoring cultural heritage and repatriating antiquities to their owners and origins. Read more here. (OZ)

• Et tu, Museum Ticket Seller?!

  A Swiss court convicted a ticket seller for skimming about a million Swiss francs from the Beyeler Foundation. The Beyeler Foundation is an art museum outside Basel, and one of Switzerland’s most visited museums. The 54-year old female cashier, whose name is withheld under European privacy laws, pocketed entry fees from visitors.  a The scheme involved her selling emergency tickets and selling single tickets twice, by claiming the printer was not working, and pocketing the difference. She also canceled tickets sold by colleagues and stole the money. The ploy started in August 2008 and persisted for years. Her thefts ended up amounting to 1 percent of the museum’s total income from ticket sales. She was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison and a $3,600 fine (in addition to being required to repay all the money she stole). Read more here. (OZ)

• Just one of the TEFAF Stories

  Blick auf Murnau mit Kirche II (1910) was a landscape painting by Wassily Kandsinky that sold at auction in 2023 for $45 million. The painting was formerly owned by Siegbert Samuel Stern, who purchased the work in 1924 and hung it in his home in Germany. In 1937, the abstract work was looted by the Nazis as part of their campaign to eliminate “degenerate art.” The painting changed hands a few times until landing in the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands in 1951, where it stayed for 70 years. In 2016, Stern’s heirs made a restitution claim on the painting which was subsequently rejected in 2018 due to “insufficient facts.” The committee reversed its decision and granted restitution in 2022. Stern’s heirs then sold the work at Sotheby’s and the dealer who purchased the work is bringing it to this year’s TEFAF, an annual art, antiques and design fair hosted by the European Fine Art Foundation in Maastricht. The work has generated a lot of buzz and is expected to be a big draw, given its condition and history as a pivotal artifact of abstract art. Read more here. (OZ).

• In Saudi Arabia, CEO of AlUla Arrested for Corruption (while making desert terrain into a living museum)

  In late January, the CEO of the Royal Commission of AlUla, was arrested for corruption. AlUla, named after an ancient city of Saudi Arabia, is  a Saudi Arabian initiative to help the country’s art and cultural tourism flourish. Saudi Arabia is planning to put more than $35 billion into AlUla, to make the desert terrain into a “living museum.” The Parisian Centre Pompidou has been working with the Royal Commission to collaborate on various sculptures and projects. Allegedly, the CEO, Amr al-Madani, has been illegally making profits off of contracts between a company he owns stake in and a scientific research agency, receiving a cut in the contracts worth over $55 million. al-Madani  and three of his partners have confessed to the crime and are now awaiting trial.  Read more here. (SN)

• Environmental Activists Charged with Defacing Civil War Memorial

  A member of a climate activist group, Jackson Green, has been charged with defacing an African American Civil War memorial at US National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. On November 14, Green painted the words “Honor Them” next to a monument memorializing  one of the first all-Black regiments enlisted to fight in the US Civil War. In a statement made by Green, he compared the plight of those fighting to end slavery to those at the front lines of climate change activism today. This event is another example of a recent trend of “eco-vandalism,” also known as climate activism. Green’s sentencing is scheduled for early April. Read more here. (SN)

   

• German "Advisory Commission" to become an Arbitration Something or Other

  Washington Principles have been getting much attention given the 25th Anniversary of the famed conference and the ongoing interest in restituting or retaining Nazi-era looted art. On 13 March 2024, the German Federal Government announced its plans to make changes in the Germany Advisory Commission tasked with hearing Nazi-era looted art claims and issue non-binding opinions with a new framework. Arbitration is not mandatory but it is binding. More information in German HERE. We will keep you updated on this development as we continue with our Looted Art project dedicated to Nazi-era looted art and post-colonial restitution efforts. Want to know more? Contact us: info@itsartlaw.org!