The Nazi Art Trove: Law on the Side of Property Theft? Statutes of Limitation, Legal Unconscionability (Sittenwidrigkeit) in Germany

Yes, the paintings were stolen, but time has run....

Since when is a statute of limitations a protection against the unconscionability (Sittenwidrigkeit) of the retention of stolen property, knowingly, unknowingly, or "any sane person would have known it was stolen - situation"?

This issue turns up for this author in the face of the following article at ABC News: Claims on German Art Trove Face Legal Hurdles.

These kinds of situations show how far from the objective of simple "justice" the provisions of the laws are, with falsely legislated, wrongly understood and stupidly enforced statutes of limitation among the worst offenders, hardly ever protecting victims, but often serving the interests of wrongdoers.

Christie's Auctioned Francis Bacon TripTych Sets Money Record for Artwork

You know the financial system and the order of values in the country are totally out of whack when one "art" piece fetches more money at a Christie's auction than the TOTAL annual Congressional appropriation for the National Endowment for the Arts.

This also shows just how misinformed the people in Congress and state legislatures are, who are quick to cut government expenses by starting especially at the doors of the arts and sciences, without having any conception of how value is created in society, how the markets work and what the rich spend their money on, when the have that money

Legislatures are full of people long on theory and short on pragmatism.

If political reactionaries are going to support a society totally skewed toward the top in terms of the distribution of income and wealth, then they had better support the disciplines that create the people who produce the products that the wealthy purchase -- mirroring market forces that thus serve as a voluntary form for the "redistribution" of money toward the poorer sectors.

The rich do not "buy" poverty -- but they do buy what poverty produces, and art is at the top of the list.

Rather than reading the partisan dailies, the misguided might be better off reading the leading publications on art news.

For a starter, take a look at the New York Times: Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs.

The Legendary Armory Show Art Exhibition 100 Years Ago

How the world of art has changed in 100 years!

Or has it?

See the BBC News at The Armory Show: The art exhibition that shocked US in 1913.

Hugo Barros Collages

At The Verge see
The surreal genius of Hugo Barros' handcrafted collages

Birgit Schössow and Her Miracle of Iconic New Yorker Covers

Spiegel Online has the story in an interview with Birgit Schössow at Small Town German Illustrator Makes it Big with New Yorker Covers.

Artsy Stuff at ARTalk blog at MIT Admissions

ARTalk is really quite an interesting blog at MIT Admissions.

ARTalk at MIT Admissions.

I found it while googling images for a nice photograph of the Guggenheim Museum rotunda and found it at Bright Star. Obviously, given my interest in astronomy, staircases and architecture, this was a natural.

Art at the Rothschild Waddesdon Manor

Art, chez Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor in the United Kingdom is reported for FT.com by Rachel Spence.

Master Artist Wolfgang Beltracchi and The Beltracchi Project with Manfred Esser

"Art" thou familiar with the Beltracchi Project? or Manfred Esser?


"Red Picture with Horses", faked as a Heinrich Campendonk painting, but actually painted in Campendonk's style by Wolfgang Beltracchi
linked from Spiegel Online International

Wolfgang Beltracchi (born Wolfgang Fischer)
linked from Spiegel Online International

Confessions of a Genius Art Forger is really a great read at Spiegel Online International, because it is so exemplary of the follies of our modern age, an era in which greed and envy in overheated markets rules the world, whether this be Facebook membership, financial credit derivatives, housing bubble investors, misled judges or patent monopolists.

It is a world in which expertise is often a cloak for ignorance. Indeed, it is a world in which a master forger can believably claim to better understand the works of master artists than the art experts who he easily duped for decades. It is a world in which the master forger understood that he was essentially selling "envy", as he explained for his amazing success, and not art per se.

In our view, admitted master "forger" Wolfgang Beltracchi (born Wolfgang Fischer), in spite his forgery of many paintings over the past decades, may be the "greatest" painter as such of our era, an art era in which many imposters of no talent have laid claim to be artists and are sometimes even rewarded by investors equally lacking in art talent for their follies.

No one, on the other hand, can doubt the artistic talents of Wolfgang Beltracchi. The painting talent of Wolfgang Beltracchi is so phenomenal that he was able to paint numerous paintings in the greatly varying styles of many acknowledged masters of previous eras, then attribute those paintings to those masters, and then sell those paintings at enormous sums to a professional and lay public who paid top prices for the "envy" of owning a masterpiece. And they were masterpieces indeed, but painted by Beltracchi.

The amazing thing is that Beltracchi had no originals to copy. Rather, he "forged" paintings "lost" over the centuries, as attributed to various masters in the literature and sometimes described, but for which no original images existed. The paintings that he created were so good in imitating the masters' styles that expert and layman alike accepted them as genuine originals -- for decades.

Now THAT is artistic talent. It is one thing perhaps to copy or fake or forge the style of ONE painter. But to be able to imitate the style of so many painters -- that is art genius of a different kind. Indeed, an argument could even be made that Beltracchi's artworks -- in painting talent -- perhaps even surpass the masters in the very styles that he is imitating.

Hence, it is now the Beltracchi Project with Manfred Esser.
From photo to painting.
"Art" thou ready to take a look?

All the Art and the Records Division at the Frick via Humanities

Amy Lifson has the report at All the Art at Humanities magazine.

Ralph Lauren Modern English Glamour in Fall 2012 Collection: One of the World's Top Fashion Designers Hits the Mark Again: Stein Mart Deals

Ralph Lauren is one of our favorite fashion designers.

Did you know that Ralph Lauren's son, David Lauren (b. 1971), in September 2011 married Lauren Bush, granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, both in the photo below from Wikipedia.


Right in the spirit of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Ralph Lauren has an Autumn 2012 Collection featuring, as Ralph Lauren himself states:

"[T]he heritage and romance of England. My collection for Fall 2012 is about a modern glamour inspired by the timeless character and refined elegance of an authentic way of living."

See Fall 2012 - RalphLauren.com.

Hat tip to an ad originally seen at the New York Times, but our posting here is not an ad, just our interest in Ralph Lauren clothing and, as an aside, the attendant political connection.

We might add here that some years ago we bought a Ralph Lauren blazer at a Stein Mart store in the USA and some months later priced that same blazer at the Ralph Lauren (New) Bond Street Store in London, England, where it cost FOUR times more.

London and UK are much more expensive than the USA and so of course you have to price high to pay the rent, so higher prices are to be expected in the UK, but our U.S. purchase shows you what great deals Stein Mart can offer.  Thanks to my brother-in-law, who knew where to buy.

We do add here as a suggestion to the Ralph Lauren online presence, that you should add some Pinterest-capable images of the collection to your online pages. I wanted to "pin" the Fall collection page, but no luck.

As for Stein Mart, the online website is below standard and a bit "thin". In addition, why are there no stores in Europe, where there would seem to be a greater market for discount-priced quality clothing than in the USA?

The State of the Art in Art

The state of the art in Art
is analyzed by Simon Critchley
at The Brooklyn Rail
in Absolutely-Too-Much.

Is he right?

Contemporary Art Including Damien Hirst Union Flag for 30th Olympiad London 2012 Featured at Arrested Motion Art Blog

The Arrested Motion art blog takes its name from a quote by William Faulkner:

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion..."

Now whether or not that is true is another quesiton, but some good images of contemporary art are found at this blog, including the Damien Hirst union flag for the 30th Olympiad at London 2012.

LEONA'S ART CLASS: Training the Eye

LEONA'S ART CLASS: Training the Eye: - Sent using Google Toolbar

Lots of Really Neat Stuff at Creative Greed - Inspiring Individuals

Lots of really neat stuff at Creative Greed - Inspiring Individuals

Marcel Breuer Digital Archive at Syracuse University Library: Architecture and Furniture Design

Marcel Breuer Digital Archive

"The Marcel Breuer Digital Archive represents a collaborative effort headed by Syracuse University Library to digitize over 30,000 drawings, photographs, letters and other materials related to the career of Marcel Breuer, one of the most influential architects and furniture designers of the twentieth century."