Art theft is a profession. People train thieves to steal prized pieces of art in order to admire or sell on the black market.
On May 11, 1987 someone broke glass doors to the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, and removed Le Jardin, a Matisse from a wall and fled. This artwork was in the newspaper recently though because it was recovered and sent home January last year. Who might you ask was responsible for its homecoming? Guess what, law enforcement had nothing to do with it. It was the private work of a small unrecognized London based company that specializes in art investigation, aka the register.the register website
This company works in the “dim” lights of the black market. They track who owns what and how to recover lost talent from the past. This company has had criticism in the past that they surpassed legitimate methods to keep the company afloat and retrieving the artwork back. When dealing with a black market, which is full of shadowy business promises to direct clientele through this unregulated market, what is considered ethical? And what is crossing the line?
When I read the title to this article “Tracking stolen art, for profit, and blurring a few lines,” blurred lines the first thing I thought of was art theft movies. The black market is an extremely secret affair so a mere 17/18-year-old girl/ boy only knows the movie version of selling organ, drugs, and sketchy art collectibles. Like in the movie Contraband where the premise is drug smuggling and in the end they end up stealing a 20 million dollar canvas that they sell on the black market for 5 million. There are also movies like Art Heist, where a painting is stolen and someone tries to track it down. In this movie the method the recovery team uses are a little catastrophic but the idea is the same. (http://www.allmovie.com/movie/art-heist-v318935 ) The title is pretty much exactly what the register does. Mr. Radcliff, part owner, tracks stolen art and when is able to acquire it asks the real owner for a “finders fee” which could be 5% the selling price.
The company has had financial issues staying afloat in the last couple of years. As a result to these issues they have been charging clientele more than necessary for their services and through manipulative means made people from museum registers agree to pay a fee for information on a stolen work that they do not even own. In 2003 they told Musee des Beax-Arts in France that they had intelligence about a stolen piece from the museum. When the company named their price for this information the Museum could not afford the price and called the police. The work was never recovered, along with 350,000 other missing works
So now the question is what do you think? Is this a legitimate business? Should they be federally supported with a branch in the FBI or some other investigation bureau? We said two weeks ago the arts are extremely important, is it as important to preserve the lost ones at whatever price?
Taylor, Kate. “Tracking Stolen Art, for Profit, and Blurring and few Lines.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.
Definitely an interesting article! I think art is something that is often manipulated for its monetary value which is such a horrible contusion of its purpose. On the other hand I do agree with the register and companies like them. While it would be nice if they would track down stolen art for free and out of the goodness of their heart, we do live in a capitalistic society where money is the name of the game. They also need money to keep the company going and if they offered the information for free they wouldn’t have any money. To me the bigger question is why are private companies such as the register more capable at tracking down the art? Why are they doing a better job then our government employees?
The trading of information for money is a legitimate business, whether it be information about a stolen piece of art or writing a textbook. How the company retrieved that information may be deemed unethical. But then again, the entire debate of what constitutes as “ethical,” as you mentioned in your post, resurfaces.
I guess it all depends on how important a piece of art is to a museum, and how much the art is worth in general. If the museum and the public really believe that the art is worth a lot more than what’s being charged by the company, the transaction will occur. Else, it doesn’t. If the museum can’t afford to pay the company to find the art piece, it can always find other ways to raise or borrow that amount. However, the effort spent in doing so… well, that’s up to the museum to say whether the art piece is worth it.
This seems like such a controversial situation. While it would be nice if these pieces of art could be returned to their rightful owners without the intervention of the law enforcement or the need for money, however it is rather impossible to do anything these days without money. I guess it really depends on how desperate the customer is to find the art work.
However, if this IS the black market, who’s to say that this company does some stealing, or pays others to do so so that they can track down the thieves?
This article is very interesting; thanks for sharing! I believe that what this secret group is doing is amazing. If they aren’t funded by the government, how did the company even start investigating? It would take a lot of money and networking to stay afloat for the amount of time they did before the financial problems kicked in. I believe that the government should take this company under its wing; however, this action may give away the company in the black market. There are benefits when a company isn’t involved with the government.
Nonetheless, if people are stealing artworks in museums, why shouldn’t the museums pay the company to get the artwork back?
Crazy. The way The Register obtains art or information regarding the whereabouts of art is completely unethical, but so what. Theft is most likely how most art finds its way into the black market. The Register decided to fight back and make some money in the process. Do i agree how the company bribes museums? No, but no one is going to attempt to help the formal institutions otherwise.
This was a really interesting piece. I’d never thought of art thievery as a profession before–it just seems like such a one-off crime. It’s also strange to think that law enforcement can’t do anything regarding the recovery of stolen art. They probably have more important things to do, but at the same time, one would think there would be a division to deal with grand theft, no?
The Register is also extremely fascinating. At first, it sounded like vigilante justice for the art world, but then I read on and they seem to be almost as bad as the original art thieves! But of course, that’s a very subjective viewpoint. At the same time, I can’t help but feel like they’re basically taking art pieces hostage and holding them for ransom. Maybe they SHOULD be aligned with the government and given funds so that they don’t have to withhold crucial information–but I can’t help thinking that perhaps their methods are too off-kilter for law enforcement.