Category: issues

A Harvard panel debates intellectual property protection in the digital age. – Wired

• Three robbers were recently executed in China for stripping a tomb of murals with the intention of selling them. Is China cracking down on the plundering of cultural artifacts? – The Art Newspaper

With Sotheby’s and Christie’s busy with investigators, the auction-house competition behind them consolidates. After buying Phillips, the world’s third largest auction house, less than four months ago, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton buys Tajan, France’s largest auction house. The deal will allow Phillips to enter the French auction market, which remains closed to foreign auctioneers. It will also give Tajan’s customers access to the London and New York markets, where Phillips has sales and where taxes are lower than in France. – New York Times

• And: Sotheby’s/Christie’s problems could level the playing field. – BusinessWeek

Salzburg Festival director Gerard Mortier changes his mind about quitting the festival to protest Austrian politics, according to the Vienna daily Der Standard. – Times of India (AP)

The Canada Council has come under fire in Parliament for some of the offbeat artistic projects it has funded. “Artists are often pushing the envelope. They are like scientists – they are experimenting, taking risks.” – Chicago Tribune

The Iranian Council of Music, a “unique creation of the 21-year-old Islamic Revolution,” requires written approval before any bar of music is played in public anywhere in Iran. “Along with the Council of Poetry, which vets every word of every lyric written, it is housed within the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture, charged with keeping Iran a pure Islamic country by enforcing a mass of rules about which books people can read, what music they can hear, which foreigners they can talk to.” All of which has predictably led to an official culture and an underground one. – Salon

The auction house’s share price surges Wednesday on speculation that the company is ripe for a takeover. – Financial Times

• And: SELLING SCRAMBLE: With the spring art auction season approaching, Christie’s and Sotheby’s scramble to get works to sell. Sellers are eager to take advantage of the high markets, but many are wondering what effect the collusion scandal will have. – New York Times
  
  
• “EXPENSIVE BUT NOT LIFE-THREATENING”: New chairman of Sotheby’s, on the job just one day, brushes aside his company’s plunging stock price and predicts the auction company will come out intact from the US Government’s investigation of collusion. – New York Times
  • And: Europeans to join in lawsuits against auction houses. – The Times (UK)
    
    
• So what’s the case for collusion, why’s it so wrong and can the auction houses talk their way out of trouble? – Slate
  • Related: DON’T GET MAD, GET EVEN: Australian art dealer Chris Deutscher believed giant auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s nearly ran him out of business. So he closed up his gallery and opened upstart Australian auction house Deutscher Menzies. The firm is finding its niche, prospering, even, as the Sotheby/Christie’s scandal widens – DM racked up a 50 per cent increase in sales this past year.  – Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
• THAT HAPPENED UNDER THE OLD GUYS: As US investigation into collusion between the top auction houses widens, chief executives at Sotheby’s suddenly resign yesterday. – New York Times

Billboards advertising McDonald’s have gone up around Berlin showing a picture of a hamburger next to words like ‘Plima!’ or ‘Liesig!’ Written in a caricaturist ‘bamboo script,’ the misspelled words play on a popular misconception that Asians, and particularly the Chinese, cannot pronounce the letter R. “These ads are jolly and funny,” says a McDonald’s spokesman. “We haven’t heard any complaints.” He sure has now. – Die Welt (Germany)

Bodes well for upcoming Olympic Arts Festival. – Sydney Morning Herald

Korea plans major investments in its cultural infrastructure to reshape the country’s cultural profile over the next ten years. Plans include a massive new cultural center for Seoul. – Korea Herald