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International News Digest
BERGMAN PROPERTY TO BECOME ARTIST CENTER?
Ingmar Bergman’s property on the island of Farö in the Baltic Sea has been sold. As Agence France-Presse reports, the Norwegian businessman Hans Gude Gudesen purchased the property from the inheritors of the late Swedish film director, who died in 2007. According to the report, Gudesen plans to transform the property into “an artistic center,” although there are no further details in the report on his plans.
FRENCH ANTIQUARIANS VERSUS AUCTION HOUSES
Antiquarians in France are up in arms over proposed legislation that would allow auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s to conduct private sales. As Le Monde’s Harry Bellet reports, the vente de gré àgré, or the transaction from one individual to another, means that sales can take place outside auctions and that prices are not made public.
Hervé Aaron, head of the national antiquarians syndicate, argues that the proposed legislation would be a “disaster for the art market in France.” “This situation would only reinforce the already predominant position of the two auction houses––Sotheby’s and Christie’s––and would wipe off the map small and larger merchants who make up 70 percent of the art market in France and keep many artisans working.” François Curiel, head of Christie’s France, notes that individual-to-individual sales have been allowed in the United States and Great Britain without seeing their markets or antiquarians disappear. “Some people selling give us a mandate to negotiate a work quickly and discretely, without having to wait the three or four months necessary for preparing and running an auction.”
Guillaume Cerutti, head of Sotheby’s France, argues that the current restrictions on individual-to-individual sales are hurting the French art market. “An auction house like Sotheby’s is already making [such] sales with its French clients. To put it simply: Instead of being able to make these sales in France at its French branch––which our regulations do not allow––[Sotheby’s] has its English or American branches intervene.” For Cerutti, this “absurd situation” means that certain key operations are taking place outside the country. “It’s urgent to relocate these sales to France.” According to Cerutti, the French art market has been declining for the past thirty years and accounts today for only 6 percent of world sales.
Aaron sees the disadvantages elsewhere. “If France is handicapped, it’s above all due to the fiscal and administrative weights that slow it down. Sales tax of 5.5 percent on imports, which doesn't exist in the US, secession rights, copyright . . . the list of constraints is long.”
“GENERAL STRIKE” AT VIENNA ACADEMY
Students and instructors at Vienna’s Akademie der bildenden Künste have gone on strike to protest a move by the Austrian ministry of education to introduce the Anglo-American degree system of bachelors' and masters' degrees. As Der Standard reports, the protest slogans––“Malen nach Zahlen” (Painting After Paying) and “Education Is Not for Sale”––take aim at the rumor that the ministry will cut off the academy’s already tight funding if the new degrees are not introduced.
Decided in 1999 at the Bologna congress, the new degree system is being introduced across the European Union in order to standardize postsecondary education while taking the Anglo-American system as its model. The Vienna academy wants to stick with diploma studies and has come up with a development plan. The strike is expected to continue until rector Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen meets with the ministry later this week.
Critics argue that the shift toward the Anglo-American system will make studies more money-oriented while favoring institutional structures over individual artistic development. Another factor in the strike is mistrust between the university and its rector, who seems to sympathize with both the European framework and the concerns of the students. “One must see how one can mediate between both sides,” Schmidt-Wulffen told the Standard.
DUTCH MUSEUM LOSES COLLECTION TO CREDITORS
It seems that the economic crisis is bringing both good and bad news for museums. While some European museums are recording more visitors––opting for a cheaper outing––others are losing more than visitors. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Dirk Schümer reports, the Scheringa Museum in Spanbroek, Holland, recently welcomed four trucks and a bailiff who came to seize a collection of fifteen hundred works hanging on the walls. A few hours earlier, the DSB-Bank of the arts patron Dirk Scheringa had been declared bankrupt––a loss that allowed the competing ABN Amro-Bank to pick and choose from the bankrupt bank’s assets. The collection of modern realist painting––estimated at nearly sixty million dollars––is now sitting in a safe while visitors have come to gaze at the empty walls, what Schümer calls “the first complete installation of the financial crisis.”
It seems that Scheringa used the collection to secure a loan to build a brand new museum in the neighboring town Opmeer. The museum is almost finished, but alas, the collection is missing. Along with the collection, Scheringa’s empire includes thirty companies and a world-class skating team, as well as a football team, AZ Alkmaar and its stadium. Holland’s cultural minister, Ronald Plasterk, has expressed regret about the realist collection, which is now threatened with being scattered across the planet.
HAMBURG ARTIST PROTEST IMPACTS CITY PLANNERS
A protest by two hundred artists last August in Hamburg’s Gängeviertel area seems to have had an impact on both city planners and the Dutch investors who want to tear down the historic buildings to make way for luxury residences. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Till Briegleb reports, the group of artists, including Daniel Richter, occupied abandoned buildings and demanded that that city save the historical area while providing more space for artists, ateliers, and galleries. Despite this public-relations disaster, the Dutch investor Hanzevast is going ahead with its development plan. As Briegleb notes, the City of Hamburg is “astonishingly” standing behind the artists’ illegal action, although the city itself has no legal ground to prevent the development project from going ahead. Hamburg’s cultural senator, Karin von Welck, is trying to make the artists’ plan more attractive to the Dutch investors, but the latter are interested in making a profit, not cheap ateliers, apartments, and galleries. According to Briegleb, in light of rising public pressure, some are speculating that the city senate may be willing to pay a 1.5-million-dollar fine for negging on the development project. That option, however costly, may be better than setting off a new wave of protests in the heart of the city if the development plan continues.