ABOVE: Detail from photographer Spencer Tunick’s installation last July in Tyneside. Northumbria police are investigating closed-circuit TV closeups of the participants which have been offered for sale in pubs.

This is a textbook case of the law of unintended consequences, and at the same time a testament to the unsurpassed ingenuity of mankind in making novel forms of pornography. When photographer Spencer Tunick gathered 1,700 naked volunteers in Tyneside, England on a Sunday morning last July, his was not the only camera clicking away. Britain, in case you weren’t aware, is the most camera-surveilled country on Earth, with some 4 million closed-circuit security cameras watching the landscape at any given time. On July 17, 2005, according to news reports today, some of them were trained on Tunick’s volunteers, quietly zooming in and snapping away. Now those images have been found offered for sale in some local Tyneside pubs, for the low-resolution titillation of whoever would buy such a thing.

Naturally, the police are investigating, but the police are the ones who are supposed to be controlling the CCTV cameras, so all signs point to an inside job, naturally. Two civilian police staff are apparently facing suspension related to the investigation, and a Deputy Chief Constable was dispatched to reassure the public that the CCTV system is secure and being used in the interests of crime-fighting and national security and all that. Perhaps the two suspects could claim to be doing an elaborate performance piece?

LINK: The Independent > Film of artist’s mass nude photo shoot being sold in pubs

ABOVE: Turbine Hall, the large entrance/exhibition space at Tate Modern. The Art Newspaper reveals in its latest issue that Tate is actually not, officially and technically speaking, a museum.

The Art Newspaper, which always pulls something crazy and entertaining out of their hat each month, revealed last week that the Tate is not, from a technical standpoint, actually a museum. The iconoclastic institution is not a member of the Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council (the MLA), the only only nationally-funded museum in that position.

The odd arrangement is the result of the Tate refusing to accept the MLA guidelines on deaccessioning, or the selling of museum-owned artworks. The MLA states that museums are supposed to give other museums first crack at taking any works that happen to be on their way out of the catalogue. The Tate says it wants to reserve the option of swapping works by living artists for superior works by that same artist if the possibility arises. It’s never been done, but the option is there. Now the MLA is threatening to take Tate off the list of institutions that receive works through the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) program, which allows inheritors to settle tax bills by donating art works to the AIL, which in turn gives them away to member institutions. In other words, membership has its privileges.

LINK: The Art Newspaper > Tate is not a museum

ABOVE: Detail from Henri Matisse’s Luxembourg Gardens, one of four paintings stolen in Rio de Janeiro in late February. It turned up yesterday on a Russian auction site.

One of the four paintings stolen from the Chacara do Ceu museum in Rio de Janeiro during a Carnival parade on February 24 turned up for sale on a Russian auction website, Interpol revealed on Monday (yes, we’re kind of late to this party). Matisse’s Luxembourg Gardens was posted for sale for about four hours on the Mastak site, with an asking price of US$13 million.

The Russian connection gives some credence to the theory that the heist was a collaboration between illicit foreign art dealers and drug traffickers, but Brazilian police say they believe the four paintings—a Monet, Picasso, Matisse, and a Dali, the pride of the Chacara’s collection and worth about US$50 million total—are still in Rio. They believe that the thieves (who not only hustled the four paintings out into the crowd still in their frames, but also mugged some tourists inside the museum for good measure) are trying to liquidate their loot for cash to fund drug smuggling. Sound familiar?

LINK: Sydney Morning Herald > Stolen Matisse on auction website

ABOVE: detail from three vigango, carved memorial posts made by the Mijikenda people of Kenya. The Christian Science Monitor reports a booming grey-market trade in the sacred objects.

Here’s a number for you: ten years ago, the trade in non-Western cultural property was about $1 billion; it’s now brushing $4.5 billion, according to Interpol. And if you follow the money, it naturally turns out that a fair chunk of that amount is being siphoned off by rakes and scoundrels who are willing to trade under the table, leaping patrimony laws, ethical acquisition policies, and plain good taste in a single bound. The Christian Science Monitor reports today that the trade in vigango, a type of memorial carving made by the Mijikenda people of Kenya, is growing, to the material and spiritual detriment of Africans.

The totems, which are carved wooden posts memorializing the dead, are the Mijikenda’s equivalent of a gravestone. They get snatched by young Kenyan men to sell to Western dealers, who pay them between $300 and $800 in Mombasa; in the west, they are valued at upwards of $5,000. The trouble is, the vigango (it’s a plural word; the singular is kigango) are not classified in international patrimony agreements as antiquities, since most are not that old. So trading them is certainly a crappy thing to do, but not technically illegal. And the Kenyan government doesn’t qualify them as protected cultural property, so the trade continues. You’d think that with all the current talk about patrimony, smuggling, and shady acquisitions at leading cultural institutions (*ahem*, Getty, Met, Princeton), that there would be some reluctance to buy these totems, which have deep spiritual significance for the people who make them. But the trade is growing.

LINK: Christian Science Monitor > Theft of sacred vigango angers Kenyan villagers

ABOVE: some of Art Spiegelman’s artwork. He’s talking twice in SanFran this weekend.

Italy signs deal with Met over disputed art: Today the government of Italy inked its deal with the Met to get back the Euphronios Krater and a 15 Greek silver baubles; the Met will get items “of equivalent beauty and importance,” on long term loan from Italy in return. Go equivalency! [Reuters]

Spiegelman gets people to take comics seriously: comic-book auteur Art Spiegelman is speaking twice this coming weekend in the Bay Area, and he figures in the show “Masters of American Comics” currently on display at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hammer Museum at UCLA. [SFChronicle]

Art sales: an old dog learns new tricks: Staid antiques firm Partridge Fine Arts in London has agreed to be taken over by London art dealer Mark Law and his company, and there are some changes being made, including a large, oddly financed sale at Christie’s. [Telegraph]

ABOVE: detail from the Euphronios krater, a 12-gallon greek pot depicting a scene from the Trojan War. Phillipe de Montebello is interviewed in this week’s New York Times Magazine about its imminent return to Italy.

In its almost-always-entertaining front-of-mag interview this week, the New York Times Magazine talks with Phillipe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, about the fact that the Met is soon to return the Euphronios Krater, a large terra cotta pot, to Italy because it was acquired under less than ethical circumstances. As the refreshingly candid de Montebello says, “the piece came to us in a completely improper way — through machinations, lies, clandestine night digging.”

But he doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to the Italians, either. While the Met has apparently accepted that Italy wants its pot back, de Montebello is fairly dismissive of the quivery nationalism driving that decision, chalking it up to a bias against the U.S., while Italian officials ignore similar shady transactions taking place just down the road in Europe and the Gulf states. And what, after all, is to stop Greece from claiming the Krater itself, since it was originally made there? De Montebello essentially questions the validity of patrimony laws, period. It’s a debate worth having.

LINK: New York Times Magazine > Stolen Art?

ABOVE: Detail from Munch’s The Scream, a version of which was stolen from the Munch Museum in 2004. Six men went on trial in Oslo yesterday accused in the theft.

Six Norwegians pleaded not guilty of stealing Edvard Munch’s The Scream in Oslo on Tuesday. The painting was stolen in 2004 along with another Munch work, The Madonna and hasn’t been recovered. Investigators apparently feel that the paintings are still hidden somewhere in Norway, and there is currently a reward of 2 million Norwegian crowns offered for their return.

The spectacular daylight robbery of the Munch Museum was straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, with two masked men storming into the place with a gun and tearing the two works off the wall before making their getaway by car. Reuters says that there has been speculation among the Norwegian media that the theft was actually carried out to draw attention away from a larger, deadlier heist taking place elsewhere in the city. The six accused all entered their not-guilty pleas; if convicted, however, they face 17 years in jail, and prosecutors are pushing for compensation totaling 750 million crowns if the three judges presiding over the case find them guilty. That’s a lot of prison cigarettes…

LINK: Reuters > Six plead not guilty over “The Scream” art theft

ABOVE: King Tut’s death mask, part of a traveling exhibition now showing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Some visitors to the exhibit are suing because they say it doesn’t meet disability requirements.

If you are using a screen reader to read this, then you are one of millions of people out there with significantly impaired vision. This being a blog mostly dedicated to visual art, we must admit that we’ve never really spent much time worrying whether you can see the pictures that accompany the text, although to be fair, we should. Not being able to see art doesn’t in the end have much to do with one’s interest in art either way. A helpful reminder of this appeared in the Miami Herald yesterday, in a story about three blind visitors to the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale’s current King Tut exhibit who are now suing the museum for making inadequate concessions for visitors with disabilities.

We’re interested to learn, for instance, that the audio tour of the exhibit provided for the visually impaired covered only 20 or so items out of the 130 on display, and that the museum keeps no replicas of artifacts on hand to allow blind patrons to get a feel for them. The Met, apparently, has touch tours available for the visually impaired. Accessibility is a huge issue for publicly funded institutions like museums, where the public generally have a higher level of expectation for specialized services. Looks like the MOAFL is getting a an up-close-and-personal reminder of that fact.

LINK: Miami Herald > Disabled sue over access to Tut show

ABOVE: Barry Munitz, now ex-head of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, who yesterday announced his resignation, and a $250,000 payment to the trust.

Boy, the Getty just can’t catch a break. With former Getty antiquities curator Marion True staring down the long maw of the Italian justice system, Greek and Italian investigators still sniffing around their basement for any chunks of marble that may have arrived still caked in pilfered mediterranean soil, and allegations of un-kosher financial deals between senior staff and business partners, the museum has taken an extended thrashing from the press.

The L.A. Times, which has been relentless in shoveling shit around this whole issue, today provides the lowdown on the latest piece of bad news, which is that the head of the $7 billion J. Paul Getty Trust, which oversees the museum, and other educational projects, was resigning amid bad vibes over personal expenses billed to the Trust. Barry Munitz’s resigntation was announced yesterday, with Munitz agreeing to pay the Trust $250,000, forgoing his $1.2 million severance package, but without acknowledging wrongdoing. Both sides say the matter is closed; Munitz has paid his money, the board agreed not to go after him for more. But obviously this is another blow to the credibility of the U.S.A’s third-largest private foundation and one of its most important cultural institutions.

LINK: L.A. Times > Munitz Steps Down as Head of Getty Trust

ABOVE: Robert M. Mardirosan, a Massachusetts lawyer who looked after a set of stolen paintings for 28 years, in his Falmouth, Mass. studio.

Strange story today out of Massachusetts, where a lawyer, Robert Madirosan, has apparently admitted to hiding seven paintings, allegedly stolen by one of his clients, for more than 28 years. The seven paintings, including a Cézanne, were stolen from Stockbridge, Mass., in 1978. A private investigator, one Charlie Moore, has been searching for them since 1979, at the behest of the paintings’ rightful owner.

The illuminating part of the whole story was the labyrinthine series of anonymous intermediaries, shell companies, and border-hopping escrow deals that allowed Madirosan to negotiate the return of the Cézanne painting in return for a promise to waive ownership of the other six paintings. And all this was executed by this one dude a hundred miles down the road from the house the paintings were stolen from in the first place. The statute of limitations applies to the original thefts, and Madirosan was never implicated in the theft itself, so that’s not his problem. There will likely be fines, and the cost of refurbishing the purloined paintings, but criminal charges are still up in the air, related to the 1999 Cézanne deal. If you’ve ever wondered how shady international art deals are made, this is a fascinating piece of reading.

LINK: Cape Cod Times > Gumshoes trace stolen art to Cape

ABOVE: Lynn Chadwick’s The Three Watchers, a bronze sculpture in Wandsworth, England, one figure of which was recently stolen.

Thieves recently struck again in what is turning into a rash of thefts of public bronze sculptures in England, this time making off with one of the three standing figures from sculptor Lynn Chadwick’s The Three Watchers (1960). The Guardian reported yesterday that the incident is the 20th such theft within the last year. The issue blew wide open late in 2005 when a two-tonne, £3 million Henry Moore bronze, Reclining Figure, was carried off in the dead of night by thieves using a portable crane and a stolen truck.

The sculptures are being stolen for their valuable metal content, although everyone notes with chagrin that they would be a hell of a lot more valuable left intact (but try explaining that to a bronze scrapper on the trail of an easy £5,000). Soaring copper prices mean that nefarious characters with a lorry and a few strong helpers can haul away a sculpture in a few minutes, melt the thing down before sunrise, and liquidate it by lunchtime. Institutions with large bronzes on their properties are being encouraged to step up security or move the sculptures to more secure locales.

LINK: The Guardian > As another bronze is stolen, police fear treasures are going for scrap

ABOVE: Pierre Pinoncelli, top right, was ordered to pay more than €200,000 for damages to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain.

Pierre Pinoncelli, who we reported on earlier this month when he brought his (bang bang!) silver hammer down upon Marcel Duchamp’s famous Fountain, was ordered by a Paris judge yesterday to pay €214,000 as a fine for his attack, and to pay to have the piece repaired.

Pinoncelli maintains that his attack was a piece of performance art, and that he has made the iconic Duchamp “readymade” into a truly original work by damaging it. The judge, as judges are wont to do, disagreed. Pinoncelli’s hammering was an escalation of his aggression against the hapless urinal, which he urinated into during a 1993 exhibit. It will apparently cost €14,352 to have the piece restored.

LINK: BBC > Attack on urinal work brings fine

ABOVE: Maria Altmann reacts to news that Austria will return to her five Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis.

Maria Altmann, an 89-year-old Californian, found out yesterday that an Austrian arbitrator has decided that the country needs to return a set of Klimt paintings stolen from her family just before the Second World War. Altmann, whose wealthy Jewish family commissioned a number of Klimt paintings which have in the years after the war become regarded as priceless masterpieces, lost the paintings originally when she and her husband were interned in Dachau.

This might sound familiar, as there have been a number of high-profile lawsuits launched against European countries that have artworks stolen by Nazi looters in their collections. The Klimt paintings in this case are estimated to be worth upwards of $150 million. When exactly the paintings will be transferred from their Belvedere Castle home in Vienna is still up in the air.

LINK: Washington Post > Court Sides With Heir to Looted Nazi Art

ABOVE: Details from photobooth self-portraits done by Andy Warhol, and recently made public for the first time by the Warhol Foundation. But are we allowed to show it to you?

Digital law and copyright professor Lawrence Lessig wrote recently in Wired magazine about the policy of the Warhol Foundation when it comes to granting artists and scholars the use of Warhol imagery for their work. Most in their situation, sitting on a mountain of iconic 20th century imagery, most of it highly bankable, are very grabby with their “intellectual property” (as it’s known). But Lessig, who is the founder of Creative Commons and an out-front leader in advocating for less stringent copyright schemes, writes that the Foundation lets artists and scholars use Warhol imagery not only for free, but also free of restriction on how it’s used.

Warhol, after all, made his most famous works by appropriating other people’s images—soup cans, Brill-o boxes, celebrity photos—and so the foundation felt (or so explains foundation president Joel Wachs) that it had a mandate to allow other artists to appropriate Warhol in turn. Not a profound or life-altering decision, certainly, but it does acknowledge the essential truth that artists do not operate in a vacuum, and every idea came from somewhere.

LINK: Wired News > When Theft Serves Art

ABOVE: Detail from Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1964), which was attacked by a neo-dadaist last Wednesday.

We can see it now: ten years hence, the MoMA will do a group retrospective, looking back over the work of artists who make their statements by destroying or vandalizing the work of their predecessors (or perhaps they just can’t help it). And the rogues’ gallery of artists profiled in the New York Times last Saturday will comprise its bulk: the ones who painted clown faces on Goya prints, the one who vomits paint on old masters, the ones who relieved themselves in another version of Duchamp’s Fountain. It would actually be quite the show, although it presents some unique curatorial hurdles. Nevertheless, when it happens, we expect a fat slice of that MoMA $20 entry fee. Just want to make that clear now.

Pierre Pinoncelli, a French performance artist, struck the Duchamp masterpiece with a small hammer. This is in fact the second time he has taken a hammer to it: the first time was in 1993, but that time he managed to pee in it as well. The piece, which is one of eight replicas that Duchamp made in 1964, after the original was lost, will be repaired and live to fight Mr. Pinoncelli another day, officials said.

LINK: New York Times > Conceptual Artist as Vandal: Walk Tall and Carry a Little Hammer (or Ax)