Links: ARCA

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ARCA, art, art crime, art forgery, art market, art theft, art trafficking, cultural preservation, interdisciplinary, international law, looting, provenance, repatriation, research, smuggling

The Association for Research Into Crimes Against Art is an important international organisation doing exactly what the name suggests, and their site is highly recommended. Conceived as a think tank, it connects professionals from the varied disciplines relevant to art crime worldwide, promotes scholarship, and emphasizes public outreach. The group organises conferences and training in interdisciplinary research, publishes, and keeps a blog on recent media relevant to art crime. It also has outstanding links to more specialised blogs and sites.

Click here or above to go to ARCA’s site.

 

Problems Peculiar to Art Crime

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art, art crime, art theft, art trafficking, cultural heritage, cultural preservation, excavation, FBI, international law, looting, provenance, repatriation, smuggling

Art is a small world, and art crime a bizarre one. Problems arise in trying to combat it that are negligible or even non-existent in other realms of law enforcement or crime prevention. One uniquely frustrating aspect is scale; perhaps in the era of universal globalisation, trafficking networks crossing continents isn’t surprising, but what is, is the scope of time. Art crimes can drag on over a span of years, from the time a piece is stolen, through the hands of fences and dealers, until it is finally sold; art criminals seem to possess extraordinary patience. The more hapless, small-time criminals often find themselves stuck with a work for years, trying to find a buyer without risking getting caught, while more sophisticated types will deliberately slow negotiations or delivery of an illicit piece to help them fly under the radar. There is evidence that the most experienced traffickers even exploit statutes of limitations, planning ahead for deals to be made only after they can no longer be tried, even if caught.

The Impact of Art Crime I: Thriving Criminal Networks

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antiquities, archaeology, arms deal, art, art crime, art theft, art trafficking, artefact, artifact, international law, looting, museum, narcotics, organized crime, smuggling

An important question commonly asked when people first learn of the theft and looting of art worldwide, is—why does it matter? Art is part of a privileged, elite world, and archaeology is literally ancient history—aren’t there more important problems to address? There are, and reducing art crime can help. Billions of dollars of illicit art and antiquities are trafficked worldwide every year, ranking art crime the third largest criminal endeavour, behind only narcotics and arms dealing. Even conservative estimates place it at fourth, if one edges in money laundering.

What Is Provenance?

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antiquities, archaeology, art crime, art history, art theft, art trafficking, artefact, artifact, cultural heritage, cultural preservation, looting, provenance, repatriation, smuggling

Provenance n. 1. Place of origin; derivation. 2.a) The history of the ownership of an object, especially when documented or authenticated. Used of artworks, antiques, and books.  b) The records or documents authenticating such an object or the history of  its ownership.

Dictionaries are wonderful; they raise as many questions as they answer. Provenance is, in definition, indeed the history or record of a piece, but in practise, provenance is the process of verifying that something hasn’t been stolen. For more than a century, as art and antiquities have become more important, so has the question of their ownership, and it has yet to get any simpler.

The First Step

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antiquities, archaeology, art forgery, art history, art theft, art trafficking, artifact, cultural heritage, cultural preservation, looting, provenance, smuggling

Provenance is a history of an object: when it was produced, where it has been, and who has laid claim to it. A Year in Provenance is a history written in real time—each day for the next year. The question of where the project should go seems complex until one considers the greater vexation of where to begin. Provenance research, by its nature and by the nature of the world around it, needs to be interdisciplinary; to stop at recording an object’s history without concern for the ethics of that history or the protection of the object, would defeat the purpose of proper provenance.