Headline in Artdaily.org:

DEPAUL EXHIBITION EXPLORES PROCESS
OF PAIRING DOWN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

From Crosscut, Seattle.

… a book of David Levine caricatures when I was a kid, because I remember first seeing his work in a hardback at home. Since then, I’ve seen his work mainly in the New York Review of Books.

Levine has died, age 83.

Long Island University‘s provost is a master of understatement.

As a parting gesture, the just-fired director of the campus art museum stole nine Egyptian antiquities from the place, erased them from the collection’s computer database, and then sold them to Christie’s as part of “the collection of Barry Stern.”

The court wants to know why he robbed the museum. I’m sure Barry had cause: They didn’t appreciate him, he needed the money, and shit, no one would have noticed the pieces were missing if Christie’s hadn’t sent a purchase order to his old address at the museum (That last thing happened because Barry fucked up. But … you’re gonna lock up a man for making a mistake?).

Bowling Green had the blow job picture to deal with. Now Shasta College also has to figure out what to do when Mr Stiffy pays a visit.

… The painting, titled “See It Go” and styled on the mid-20th century-era “Dick and Jane” books, depicts two children playing outdoors and making motions to greet a grown man wearing a blue bathrobe. The robe hangs open and the man, in a state of arousal, is fully exposed.

… In response to complaints, officials duct-taped white poster board over the painting, which hangs in the college’s Art Gallery, and attached a note that reads, “Advisory: Provocative Content.” Near the bottom is an arrow with the directions, “Lift to view.”

… and now the University of Connecticut has its own art controversy.

The Bowling Green thing, you recall, involved high ranking administrators sneaking into the campus gallery and removing a sculpture (High school teacher, male; high school student female; BJ.) they found offensive.

In the U Conn case, students have voted for the show to be moved out of the library and into the campus art museum (everyone has to use the library; few students, I guess, go to the museum).

The offensive material here is not sexual but animal.

The artist specializes in dead birds. One piece features “a dead brown sparrow on a noose with the phrase ‘The bird got what it deserved’ etched in glass.”

The artist complains that he is misunderstood.

Nelson says the title of the bird piece, “The Birdwatcher’s Verdict,” should indicate that it is about the preferences of birders for “good birds” like cardinals and bluebirds over invasive species like sparrows or starlings.

More broadly, the artist says that the exhibit’s title, Connecticut Wilderness, “is an oxymoron that refers to the sense of confusion and ambiguity that prevails in our lives, and that I try to portray in my artwork through multi-layered meanings and unusual visual imagery.”

Birders hate sparrows so much that they think they deserve lynching.

I’m not picking up on the ambiguity.

Anyway. Students are grossed out, don’t want to have to look at dead birds in the library, want the thing out of there now.

UD says more power to them. This controversy is really about the preferences of students for “good artists.”

… Art dealers should rejoice at the perfect storm on the horizon: cash-rich collectors desperate to invest devalued currency into artworks by the dead and aged, coming face-to-face with a slew of soon-to-be indicted moneybaggers, forced by either the law or necessity to sell their art collections. Like bookies in Vegas, these dealers need only match up both sides of the client equation and collect the vigorish.

What this means for the art market is simple: a steep drop in prices for the work of younger blue chip artists awash in inventory both present and future, and an expanding universe of price appreciation for the limited set of artworks created by those gone by…

A once-prominent art dealer was arrested on Thursday on an indictment charging that he stole $88 million from investors, collectors and artists who had consigned paintings and sculpture to his Upper East Side gallery, the authorities said.

The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said the dealer, Lawrence B. Salander, sometimes sold the same painting to more than one buyer. Aides to Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Salander sold one painting to three people, promising each a 50 percent share.

“Why sell it once when you can sell it three times?” Mr. Morgenthau said at a news conference called to announce a 100-count indictment accusing Mr. Salander of grand larceny, falsifying business records, scheming to defraud investors, forging documents and perjury.

Mr. Morgenthau said the charges covered transactions with 26 victims going back to 1994, among them the tennis star John McEnroe. Mr. Morgenthau said the investigation was continuing, raising the possibility that the extent of the theft could climb. One official with direct knowledge of the investigation said the authorities believed that Mr. Salander’s take actually exceeded $100 million.

… Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Salander used the money he pocketed “to finance his self-imposed mission to corner the market in Renaissance art” and to support “his extravagant lifestyle,” which included travels in a private jet. Mr. Morgenthau also said Mr. Salander had spent $60,000 on a party for his wife at the Frick Collection, around the corner from the Salander-O’Reilly Galleries on East 71st Street.

The arrest came 17 months after Mr. Salander’s gallery was shut down and 16 months after he filed for bankruptcy. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison on each of 13 counts of first-degree grand larceny and up to 15 years on each of 10 counts of second-degree grand larceny, along with additional time for the other charges…

What a delicious synergy it would be if Salander were Ezra Merkin’s dealer…

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Update: They were neighbors!