The recent announcement of the launch of the Court of Arbitration for Art (CAA) is exciting and intriguing news.  There is nothing peculiar to the art market or the art world about the existence of disputes—any businessperson in a wide variety of industries can testify to that.  But what is promising about this initiative is the opportunity it presents to streamline an important segment of art world disputes, and in so doing to create a larger body of legal guidance that will in itself be useful in and outside of formal controversies.  It does not supplant civil litigation in courts, nor does it make any pretense of doing so.  It could, however, become an important complement.  Critical will be enough buy-in from lawyers in particular to become willing to recommend its inclusion in contracts, for example.  I would certainly include myself in that group, depending on the specific circumstances. 

Topics: Stropheus, Judith Prowda, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, AAA, Geneva, Pryor Cashman LLP, Tom Brady, Megan Noh, New York, HEAR Act, CAA, Authentication in Art, Arbitration, JAMS, The Hague, NAI, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, Quinn Emanuel Urquart & Sullivan LLP, Court of Arbitration for Art, Netherlands Arbitration Institute, William Charron, Cahill Cossu & Robinson LLP, Luke Nikas

McDonald’s recently prevailed on personal jurisdiction grounds in a closely-watched case in California about the use of street art as décor for restaurants in the United Kingdom, but the issue has quickly arisen again.  As part of what the fast-food giant has clearly decided is a winning branding strategy, the chain’s use of graffiti from New York has now brought the threat of litigation from the so-called Bushwick Collective.  Where any such lawsuit gets filed will have a great deal to do with what happens next.

Topics: Joseph Tierney, Netherlands, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Rime, California, specific jurisdiction, 17 U.S.C. § 1202, general jurisdiction, Moschino, personal jurisdiction, Graffiti, New York, Dashiell Snow, McDonald's, Street Art, Daimler AG v. Bauman, Virus, NDA, Don Rimx, Beau Stanton, Himbad, United Kingdom, Atomik, Bushwick Collective

Word came this week of two resolutions of claims to Nazi-looted art in museums in New York and Cologne, and a new Nazi-looted claim against Germany filed in Washington.  Barely a month after the Neue Galerie (of Austrian and German art) in New York announced that it had discovered a “major work” in its collection had a clouded history, the museum announced an agreement concerning the Karl Schmitt-Rotloff painting Nude (1914).  It is not known if the Schmitt-Rotloff is the same work to which the museum referred last month.  Around the same time, the Wallraff-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, Germany, announced that it had agreed to return a drawing by Adolf Menzel that had been sold to Hildebrand Gurlitt as its owners fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.  Blick über die Dächer von Schandau (View over the rooves of Schandau) (1886) will be retuned to the heirs of Hamburg attorney Albert Martin Wolffson and his daughter Elsa Helene Cohen.  These settlements are examples of constructive dialogue and enlightened treatment of the historical fact.  The new litigation likely means the opposite approach from the German defendants.

Topics: Cologne, Schwabinger Kunstfund, Breslau, Gurlitt Task Force, Germany, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Nazi-looted art, 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3), Gurlitt, David Toren, Neue Galerie, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, New York, Karl Schmitt-Rotloff, Alfred and Tekla Hess, Streen Scene in Berlin, Adolf Menzel, Strassenzene

Topics: BGBl. I Nr. 181/1998 i.d.F. BGBl. I Nr. 117/2009, Erich Lederer, London, sales under duress, Nazi-looted art, Beethoven Frieze, Jugendstil, Restitution, Austrian Cultural Ministry, World War II, Leopold Collection, Switzerland, Secession Building, Der Beirat gemäß § 3 des Bundesgesetzes über die R, Portrait of Wally, Austria, 14th Secession Exhibition, Wiener Secessionsgebäude, Zürich, Gustav Klimt, (Kunstrückgabegesetz), Vienna, Anschluss, Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Leopold Museum, Limbach Commission, New York, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Topics: Karen Sanig, Daniel Simon Collyer Bristow, Helly Nahmed Gallery, The Princely Collections, Lucian Simmons Steven Thomas, Art Finance, Mary Romano, Rina Pantalony, Philip Hoffman, International Julius Baer, Luke Dugdale, Helly Nahmad, UGGC Avocats, Studio Legale Jacobacci & Associati, Mark Cornell, UK Government Art Collection, ICOM, Daniel Tunkel Howard Kennedy, Peter Polak, David Arendt, Adrian Parkhouse, Diana Wierbicki, Paris, Guy Simonius, Bloomberg, Johann Kräftner, Art Cultural Institutions and Heritage Committee o, Columbia University, Geneva; Wendy Philips, Herrick, ARIS Title, Melanie Gerlis The Art Newspaper, Jasper Sharp, Sandrine Giroud, Cadell & Co, Scotland Yard, Lalive, Jean-Francois Canat, Houston Francesca von Habsburg, 1858 Ltd Art Advisory, Viola Reikhel-Bolot, UCLA School of Law, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Stephen D Brodie, Fine Art Wealth Management, The Fine Art Fund Group, Marlborough Contemporary, Los Angeles, Randall Willette, Events, Massimo Sterpi, Luxembourg, Sherri North Cohen, Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, Le Freeport, Kunsthistorisches Museum, LIECHTENSTEIN, Adrian George, Fabrizio Moretti, Alfredo Perez, Mishcon de Reya¸ George Bailey, TEFAF Maastricht, Mark Stephens, Dick Ellis, IBA Individual Tax and Private Client Committee, Goldsmiths London University, Andrew Renton, Withers, Sotheby's, Legal Issues in Museum Administration, Vaduz, Zürich, IBA, Vienna, Pure Love of Art versus Mere Investment, New York

The British Museum has announced that it has loaned to Russia one of the sculptures from the Parthenon that widely known as the “Elgin Marbles” after Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin who oversaw their removal from then-Ottoman occupied Greece in 1811-12. The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is the recipient of the loan, specifically, the sculpture of the river god Ilissos from the west pediment of the Parthenon.

Topics: cultural property, Pandora’s box, the 7th Earl of Elgin, Temple of Zeus at Olympia, George Clooney, Russia, Thomas Bruce, Amal Alamuddin-Clooney, Elgin Marbles, river god Ilissos, Museum of Modern Art, Greece, The British Museum, Restitution, Pausanias, Parthenon Sculpture, Portrait of Wally, Austria, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Ottoman Empire, Museums, Attica, New York

There was a curious non-development today in Austria concerning the dispute over Gustav Klimt’s famed “Beethoven Frieze” located in the Secession Building in Vienna. At issue is whether a post-war sale by Jewish survivors to Austria of a famous painting that the law of the time did not allow to be exported can be considered a sale under duress and justify restitution.

Topics: Erich Lederer, London, sales under duress, Nazi-looted art, Beethoven Frieze, Germany’s Limbach Commission, Jugendstil, Restitution, Austrian Cultural Ministry, World War II, Leopold Collection, Switzerland, Gesamtkunstwerk, Secession Building, Der Beirat gemäß § 3 des Bundesgesetzes über die R, Portrait of Wally, Austria, 14th Secession Exhibition, Museums, Wiener Secessionsgebäude, Zürich, Gustav Klimt, (Kunstrückgabegesetz), Vienna, Anschluss, Dr. Rudolf Leopold, New York, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Topics: David Freudenthal, Pearlstein and McCullough, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, iGavel, Michael McCullough, Saving Africa’s Elephants Changing the Art Scene, Frank Lord, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Christie's, Hartley Waltman, Carnegie Hall, Events, ivory ban, Herrick Feinstein LLP, Craig Hoover, Lark Mason, Customs, New York

Recurring events involving public art have underscored the tension between that expression and the law. Banksy’s “residence” in New York last fall broached this subject, but this summer’s Brooklyn Bridge flag incident, and several new lawsuits asserting copyright in graffiti will test the bounds of what the law protects and what it permits. As Banksy says in one of his murals, "graffiti is a crime."

Topics: Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, Ahol Sniffs Glue, David Anasagasti, Steel, City as Canvas, Moral Rights, Argentina, Public Art, Graffiti Art, Philippa Loengard, Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, Leonardo’s Last Supper, Columbia Law School’s Kernochan Center for Law Med, Chicago, Museum of the City of New York, VARA, Public Expression, Michael Bloomberg, American Eagle, Terry Gilliam, Banksy, 17 U.S.C. § 106A, Copyright, Buenos Aires, 5Pointz, Revok, Roberto Cavalli, vandalism, Reyes, Graffiti, The Atlantic, New York

Topics: Legislation, the Middle East, looted property, Forgery, Auctions, VAT, Studio Legale Jacobacci & Associati, authenticity, London, Sam Keller, Julien Anfruns, droite de suite, Froriep, Moral Rights, Europe, North America, Holocaust claims, California, Fondation Beyeler, Howard Kennedy FSI, Thomson Reuters, Asia, Rome, Restitution, International Council of Museums, Massimo Sterpi, United States, World War II, Sabina von Arx, 1970 UNESCO Convention, Morgan Stanley, Art Fairs, Publications, Litigation, due diligence, Immunity from Seizure Act, Museums, Bruno Boesch, 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Ex, Daniel McClean, New York