Some troubling news in London reveals that Scotland Yard may see an uncertain future for its Art and Antiques Unit. The offices who had been assigned to the unit have been reallocated to investigating the Grenfell Tower tragedy. This is a shame, as the unit is one of the world’s longest-running art crime policing units, with some terrific prosecutions of note, including the Jonathan Tokeley-Parry conviction (which set the stage for the Fred Schultz conviction in the United States), the discovery of the myriad art frauds committed by the Bolton Forgers, and many other notable initiatives.
Martin Bailey reported for the Art Newspaper that:
Vernon Rapley, who led the Art and Antiques Unit from 2001 until 2010, told The Art Newspaper that he is “worried that the closure of the unit is now being considered”. He added: “I am very concerned that the Metropolitan Police is unable to give assurances on when the three detectives who have been temporarily reassigned will be returned to the unit.”
The three officers are detective constables Philip Clare, Sophie Hayes and Ray Swan. There is currently no detective sergeant responsible for the unit, following the departure of Claire Hutcheon last March.
James Pickford in the Financial Times also noted the importance of the unit to the United Kingdom’s licit art trade:
Dick Ellis, founder and former head of the art squad, said: “To close — if it is to be closed — a small but very specialised unit at Scotland Yard, which is there among other things to assist other countries, is madness.” He added the squad had been closed once before, in 1984, for budgetary reasons, but reopened again in 1989 following pressure from other international forces and the art market. One issue at the centre of concerns about the possible closure of the Met art unit is the fight to prevent looted or stolen antiquities from the Middle East being used to fund terrorism. The unit works with overseas forces to identify illicit trafficking of cultural goods, and can take action when UK-based dealers and auctioneers relay their suspicions about objects of questionable provenance. It also maintains the London stolen arts database, which stores information and images of 54,000 items of stolen property. The UK had a 21 per cent share of the $56bn global art market by value in 2016, second only to the US with 40 per cent, according to research by Arts Economics, a consultancy. One art market professional who had dealt regularly with the Met art unit over the past decade described its detectives as “dedicated and knowledgeable”. “If that unit is lost it would be a great concern for the art market,” they said.
The Spring issue of the Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property has published an interesting student note by Jaya Bajaj titled “Art, Copyright, and Activism: Could the Intersection of Environmental Art and Copyright Law Provide a New Avenue for Activists to protest Various Forms of Exploitation?” The piece works best as a thought experiment, and may be an argument used by the many detractors of moral rights for artists to further restrict the expansion of the still-developing series of rights for artists. But I find the article, and the experimental protest to be thoughtful and well-reasoned. Here’s the abstract:
The Visual Artists Rights Act, or VARA, has since 1990 granted artists moral rights to their works of art. At least in the United States. Other nations have granted these moral rights to their artists for far longer. These are non-economic rights which prevent mutilation or destruction of works of art, and VARA lasts for the lifetime of the artist. Unfortunately much of the language of VARA is cumbersome and has relied on judicial massaging to reach a workable framework. And even despite this massaging, the concept of moral rights have not been favorably received in most courts. So it is noteworthy when an artist is able to successfully invoke the protections of VARA.