An art collector claims a Manhattan gallery owner said he wanted to borrow a Basquiat artwork, Untitled (Football Helmet), to show it “to his family,” then sold it for $300,000 without permission.  The collector, Lio Malca, demands damages for breach of duty as bailee, conversion, and fraud, and wants the art back or $500,000 (the “actual value of the piece”). Via Courthouse News.

Erin Donnelly has just informed me that Art21 has just launched what appears to be a timely and exciting program dealing with ethics and law. The Flash Point program, The Ethics of Art, will explore the issue of ethics in art from a variety of perspectives.

Throughout this topic, we’ll feature artists who make this ethical debate a focus in their work, from artists who question the role of the institution, such as Hans Haacke or Marcel Broodthaers, to artists like Alfredo Jaar, who examines the disparity between an oil-rich government and a poverty-stricken populace in his work Muxima.

Ethical decisions also factor into the artistic process. Does a photographer who sells a portrait owe anything, financially or psychologically, to the work’s subject? What kind of ownership does an artist have over reproduced images of his or her work? We’ll also look at the discussions taking place around the use of animals in art[.] Ethical issues can even come into play after an artist’s death, especially in the handling the artist’s estate and the management of his or her legacy.

Controversies and arguments abound as ethical decisions, or the lack thereof, play a role in institutional practice. With the ever-shrinking gap between commerce and culture, the prioritization of good business over public service creates an increasingly blurry set of ethical guidelines. Collector-based exhibitions, conflicts of interest, deaccessioning practices…do museums have a responsibility to their public? And if so, is this a part of institutional culture and is it being taught in today’s museum studies programs?

Here are some topics they’ll cover:

Another relevant subtopic would analyze the distinction between ethics and law, or the “should” and the “can,” and perhaps what the artist’s role is in defining and blurring these two discourses.

Watch where you walk, some sculptors take their work seriously. Jack Mackie, the artist who created The Dance Steps in Seattle, WA, has sued a photographer for taking pictures of his work and profiting from these pictures, a whopping $60. Mike Hipple, also of Seattle, said his agency complied with Mackie’s wishes and destroyed the remaining images.

A few things to consider. One, it seems the piece was created “more than 30 years ago,” so Hipple may want to look into the exact date of creation and publication and find out if these were before 1977, or between 1978 and March 1, 1989. There are certain copyright notice requirements that must be met in these two situations to ensure that the “work” does not fall into the public domain. (see Peter Hirtle’s public domain chart.) Secondly, it seems that if some public funds were used to cover some of the sculpture’s costs, and as a policy matter, this raises an interesting issue as to whether or not public sculptural works which are partially or entirely funded with tax-payer money should also be considered a government work. I don’t believe it’s as such now, but perhaps something for government actors to consider in order to avoid this type of ridiculous situation. For a good counter argument, see Gaylord v. United States. Thirdly, it would be interesting to investigate whether or not there was a written agreement between Mackie and the commissioning party and notice whether or not there was a transference or sharing of the copyright to the sculpture.

More from KomoNews.com

Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor in the Cornell University Library and member of the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Advisory Board, has updated his Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States chart. Among the changes, Hirtle added the list of countries that have joined Berne or WTO after Jan. 1, 1996. This wonderful gem will not only make a great gift, it is also licensed to users  under Creative Commons’ Attribution 3.0 license. We’ve also added the Chart to our Links section on the lower right-hand side of our blog just in case you lose your print-out or link. Incidentally, this is probably another reason why Cornell Law is currently the Lady Gaga of law schools.

The first detailed account of a real murder in the gallery, over an apparent artistic disagreement which happened in full view of staff and visitors, has been published by the UK’s National Portrait Gallery in their Archive Catalogue. A letter written by then-director James Milner two days after the 1909 tragedy tells how staff had to wash bloodstains from the floor after a “well-dressed elderly man” shot his wife and then himself in the head. The couple, from America, were said to have “gesticulated excitedly” while looking at one of the pictures before the man reportedly drew his revolver and, “placing the muzzle close to the woman’s head, fired”, before turning the weapon on himself. Via The Independent.

Since the inception of the FBI’s Art Crime Unit in 2004, more than 2,400 objects of cultural property valued at more than $142 million have been recovered. According to the FBI, a number of art criminals have been sent to jail, and many of the recovered items have been returned or repatriated.

Even so, said Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, who manages our Art Theft Program, “We are seeing an increase in these types of crimes,” with losses in art and cultural property crimes  estimated at $8 billion per year.

A very talented forger who created fake masterpieces in his home and then sold them to museums and art collectors, including the British Museum, the Tate Modern, and Christie’s, with the help of his elderly parents, was sentenced to four years and eight months last night. His mother, Olive Greenhalgh, 83, was given a 12-month suspended sentence and his wheelchair-bound father, George, 84 – is still to be sentenced for his involvement. Via The Manchester Evening News.