Crime and the Art Market

Riah Pryor

• Publisher: Lund Humphries
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781848221710
• eBook ISBN: 9781848221895
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Arte general

Interest in art crime is at an all-time high. Academia is committing greater resources to it, lawyers are increasingly specialising in the field, and the public is enthralled. Belief that the art market's opaque and unregulated practices are indirectly to blame for these crimes is also gaining ground. But what are the reasons for criminal activity in the art market? Is the art market any more welcoming to criminals than other sectors? And is law enforcement failing to keep up?
Crime and the Art Market brings together the author's direct experience from both fields to present an accessible, informative and realistic overview of these crimes in today's society. The book re-examines high-profile criminal cases, while highlighting others which failed to hit headlines but marked significant moments in the legal treatment of art crime. Through interviews, new data and exclusive insight into cases, the book demonstrates the impact of criminal activity on the market and broader society, while exploring claims that changes in the market's behaviour are needed.

PART I

THE VILLAINS

Chapter 1

NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR OLD TACTICS

PAST MISTAKES AS FUTURE WARNINGS

There was a running joke in New Scotland Yard’s Art & Antiques Unit. Following a successful conviction and media buzz around an art crime, we would anticipate a new ‘trend’ being spotted by journalists, questions emerging from academics and similar crime reports arriving.

Often, these ‘trends’ were simply the result of individuals reading the news and being prompted to come forward with their concerns about a painting, or police officers having developed contacts around a particular artist’s work and receiving better intelligence. Similarly, once journalists are alerted to a particular area of crime in the art trade (e.g. forgeries in a particular artist’s work), there tends to be a series of related stories as the media becomes better acquainted with the sector.

Exploring clusters of related crimes can, of course, be insightful. At times, it can reveal a broader criminal network. For example, a series of frauds in 2010 using fake credit cards targeting more than 40 UK-based companies (including leading auction houses) was soon uncovered by police as the work of one criminal network and, ultimately, ended in the conviction of three individuals.¹ More typically, a wave of offences within a particular sector of the art market (e.g. antiquities) reflects a broader set of risks or vulnerabilities at play (e.g. the start of conflict in a region may spur a wave of illicitly excavated objects).

This chapter explores three key factors which repeatedly crop up when studying trends (whether historical or contemporary) in art crime: conflict, emerging markets for art, and technological revolutions. These are not mutually exclusive, nor are they a comprehensive list of factors which seem to be present whenever art crime appears to be on the rise. The nature of each of these factors is also constantly changing; conflicts currently raging in the Middle East are obviously very different to those of Napoleon’s day. Similarly, we have already considered how the art market itself (in general and among its subsectors) is fluid and rapidly developing. Nevertheless, where any one or more of these factors is apparent within a situation, one can expect some form of art crime to occur.

CONFLICT

It has been a reality throughout history that the ugliest side of humanity can result in the destruction and loss of its most beautiful creations. Some of the most emotive and enduring art crime cases stem from conflict: typically, through looting, destruction and theft.²

A glance at historical examples soon reveals the consistency of crime involving cultural heritage within war and the development of international attempts to prevent (or at least rectify the damage from) it. Judge, writer and educator Arthur Tompkins describes the ‘spoils of war’ attitude to looting as a ‘right’ or ‘trophy of victory’³ which dominated the civilisations of the classical world – the Greeks, the Romans and the Persians, in particular – and continued unabated right through to the end of the Napoleonic era. A shift away from this widespread assumption that cultural property should be amassed within any decent ‘spoils of war’ collection strengthened in the 19th century, with the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), which included a call for Napoleon to return art seized during his campaigns, and with the American Civil War’s Lieber Code of 1863,⁴ which implemented conduct regulations for soldiers and forbade the harm and destruction of cultural property during battle. Cultural property remained on government agendas into the early 20th century, as peace treaties were drawn up following the First World War – notably in the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germainen-Laye, both of 1919.

The sheer breadth, scale and organisation of cultural losses during the Second World War, spearheaded by Nazi looting and destruction of so-called degenerate art, was a watershed moment for the protection of culture in conflict. Not only did it prompt short-term action – notably the 1943 Inter-Allied Declaration ‘to do their utmost to defeat the methods of dispossession practised by the Axis Powers and their associates against countries and peoples whom they have so wantonly assaulted and despoiled’⁵ – but also, on a longer-term basis, governments acknowledged that there was an ongoing problem of cultural items being targeted whenever battle lines were drawn.

The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict represented an international commitment to protect cultural property within conflict (a 1999 protocol added some teeth to the agreement, by introducing criminal offences), while the 1977 amendment protocols to the Geneva Conventions and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also recognised art within their broader consideration of humanitarian rules.

This recognition that culture is at risk within conflict was increasingly met with appreciation that attacks on heritage are used as a deliberate tactic within broader attacks on the identities of societies. The breakdown of Yugoslavia in the 1990s saw the deliberate targeting of culture associated with particular ethnic and religious groupings (discussed as a case study later in this chapter), while ideological vandalism towards art has proved a consistent feature in ongoing wars in the Middle East, including the aforementioned 2001 destruction of Afghanistan’s Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban, militant attacks on the ancient city of Nimrud, Iraq, in 2015 and (in the same year) the destruction of the ancient Temple of Baalshamin, in Palmyra, Syria. With reference to the latter, the Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova stated: ‘The systematic destruction of cultural symbols embodying Syrian cultural diversity reveals the true intent of such attacks, which is to deprive the Syrian people of its knowledge, its identity and history.’⁶

The nature of contemporary conflicts is also reshaping how crime involving cultural property functions. Today’s wars are discussed as often being intra-state and privatised⁷ – that is, no longer necessarily between countries’ governments and often featuring international players or groupings (including insurgents) who require funding via criminal networks. There is general consensus that the looting and sale of looted antiquities is one such avenue of funding, although the scale of this activity remains in debate. Certainly there are some shocking headline examples: the repeated looting of the National Museum of Afghanistan, in Kabul, in the 1990s which resulted in the loss of 70 per cent of the 100,000 objects on display, and the National Museum of Iraq, in Baghdad, in 2003, alongside reports of widespread illicit excavation of some of the world’s most significant archaeological sites.

If the wealth of historical examples and ongoing threats to culture within conflict present a grim trajectory, there are signs that the protection of cultural property in times of conflict could improve. The flow of information about threats to culture is more vivid and instantaneous than ever before, with individuals now able to upload video footage of attacks on cultural institutions, property or heritage sites online and to international audiences. Naturally, citizen journalism arrives with its own complexities. It is challenging, for example, to validate the authenticity and the neutrality of uploaded footage. Online videos can also be used as a means of propaganda, as per the 2015 video clip of Islamist militants destroying artefacts in Iraq, reported to have been uploaded by ISIS (otherwise known as Islamic State, ISIL or Daesh).⁸

Contemporary developments aside, the key reasons why art crime sits so comfortably with conflict are consistent throughout history: that is, reduced law enforcement capabilities, lapsed security measures (both in cultural institutions, heritage and private buildings), the lack of adequate government resources to protect cultural property, poverty and political confusion.

CASE STUDY: THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

The majority of people I met in Bosnia and Herzegovina were uncomfortable talking about the conflict surrounding the breakdown of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the resulting conflicts. It was, however, easy to find an enthusiastic account of the 2004 restoration of the Mostar Bridge.

Designed by the 16th-century Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin, the iconic bridge spanning the River Neretva once represented, indeed celebrated, the harmony of the multiple cultures living in the country. The subsequent destruction of the iconic structure during the brutal wars proved equally representative: this time, of the brutal divides emerging between the ethno-religious groups.

The loss of the Mostar Bridge was not the conflict’s only cultural cost. In Bosnia alone, an estimated 90 per cent of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina was destroyed,⁹ substantial damage was made to the country’s National Museum, while the entirety of Sarajevo’s Oriental Institute was burnt down. Croatia also suffered losses, including the infamous damage to Dubrovnik during the 1991–2 siege on the city led by the Yugoslav Army. Losses of privately owned items are hard to determine but likely substantial.

A proportion of this destruction was indirect or unintended collateral, but much was intentional and systematic. A later report by the academic András J. Riedlmayer described the assault on Bosnia as being characterised by two features: the mass expulsion of civilians ‘driven from their homes, robbed, raped and murdered for being of the “wrong” ethnicity and religion’, and the ‘the deliberate targeting and destruction of cultural, religious and historic landmarks’.¹⁰

On a domestic level, the respective governments were not in a position to implement protective measures for cultural property. The Creative Economy Group, in Belgrade, describes how: ‘During the 1990s, there was state rule/behaviour not to announce moveable and immoveable goods … if [an] artwork is protected by state, [the state] should ensure financial resources for conservation and protection.’¹¹ Corruption’s infiltration at the heart of the authorities equally muddied the waters. The central role culture played in the conflict was further revealed by the 2011 post-war arrest of Goran Hadžić, a Croatian Serb leader, which was reportedly prompted by his attempt to sell a painting believed to be by artist Amedeo Modigliani (although questions emerged over the work’s history and authenticity, while Hadžić’s lawyer denied his client’s link to the painting¹³). The later arrest and 2014 proceedings against the former Croatian prime minister, Ivo Sanader, for corruption also involved reports of a potential €1million worth of art being seized.¹⁴

Despite the escalating situation, which was described in a 1993 Council of Europe report as a ‘cultural catastrophe in the heart of Europe’,¹⁵ and the evident breaching of the 1954 Hague Convention’s principles, it became apparent that international legal tools in place to prevent the destruction of cultural property were more problematic to apply to civil wars. However, post-conflict efforts to seek justice for war crimes did recognise the attacks on culture. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acknowledged cultural-property-related war crimes within convictions, including those of politicians and army personnel at the highest level such as Duško Tadić, Tihomir Blaškić, Pavle Strugar, Dario Kordić and Mario Čerkez.¹⁶ The academic Jadranka Petrovic argues that this was a significant development as, while the post-Second World War Nuremberg trials acknowledged crimes against culture, this was in a comparatively ‘unsystematic manner’ and did not focus on immoveable culture (unlike the ICTY).¹⁷

The term ‘cultural genocide’ was, and continues to be, used colloquially to refer to such atrocities committed against cultural heritage in times of war. Nevertheless, it was made clear during the ICTY trials that the phrase had no legal authority, with ‘genocide’ understood as being considered applicable to ‘material’ destruction. Nevertheless, the ICTY courts did concede that the war crimes against culture could be used as evidence of genocide, ‘or as elements to prove the mental element of the crime of genocide’.¹⁸

The circumstances within conflicts which were earlier identified as conducive for crimes involving cultural heritage (namely, reduced law enforcement and security capabilities, the lack of adequate government resources to protect cultural property on the ground, poverty and political confusion) were equally apparent within the region following the conflict. Unsurprisingly, governments and enforcement agencies were preoccupied with tackling corruption and seeking justice for war crimes. While some returns of items were achieved, such as the 1,500 works of art reported to have been trucked back to Vukovar, Croatia, by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 2001,¹⁹ these were sporadic. A woman in Dubrovnik who had fled the city during the siege told me of the loss she felt upon discovering that her family Bible, which had been passed down for generations, had disappeared. When I asked whether she had any hope for its being recovered, she laughed.

Today, stolen art and looted antiquities continue to emerge out of, and travel through, the region. Professor of Security Studies at the University of Maribor, Ljubljana, Bojan Dobovšek, says: ‘There have been sporadic attempts to raise the awareness of customs officials but it’s still very easy to move items [including stolen art] across borders. Stolen goods tend to be from Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Slovenia.’²⁰ A discernible pattern of art stolen from Western Europe, and later resurfacing in the Balkans, also emerged. The most obvious example of this is the famous recovery of two paintings by J.M.W. Turner, stolen in Frankfurt in 1994 while on loan from the UK’s Tate Gallery, which revealed links to a Serbian gang; but there were also the Art Loss Register’s recovery of a work by Piet Mondrian stolen in Rotterdam and recovered in the region in 2002, and two paintings (Head of Horse (1962) and Glass and Pitcher (1944)) by Pablo Picasso which were stolen from the Sprengel Museum in Pfaeffikon²¹ in 2008 and later recovered in Serbia in 2011. The high-profile thefts of three paintings (including works by Pierre-August Renoir and Rembrandt) from the National Museum of Sweden in 2000, and of Munch’s The Scream and Madonna from Oslo’s Munch Museum in 2004, have also been attributed to ‘Eastern European gangsters’.²²

Many of the major recoveries of art within the region were orchestrated by recovery agents based in Western Europe, including the Art Loss Register (a private UK-based company which runs a database of stolen art) and a recovery company set up in Serbia by the former head of the Art & Antiques Unit, Richard (‘Dick’) Ellis, in 2011, as an extension of his UK-based Art Management Limited.²³

While conflict and immediate post-conflict chaos can be seen as a contributing factor to the rise in thefts, the increasing organisation and focus of the authorities over the past decade could well be a reason why recov...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Calls for Change
• Part I: The Villains
• Part II: The Heroes
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography