​In the few short weeks since our last post in this space, the world has changed in staggering ways.  The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on governments, businesses, economies, markets, communities, and most importantly, countless families and lives. 
 
The current crisis has also profoundly impacted the larger art world.  We do not claim to have any special powers to predict the future of the art market, particularly in the face of this unprecedented crisis. But as seasoned litigators with years of experience in art law, here are a few thoughts about what we may see in the coming months in the realm of art disputes, as the ramifications of this pandemic continue to unfold.

We’ve been following the 5Pointz case since its inception, through summary judgment, a trial, an advisory jury verdict for the plaintiffs, and a decision by federal district judge Frederic Block, who issued an award of $6.75 million (and later declined to reconsider that award).  Now, three federal appellate judges from the Second Circuit have weighed in, unanimously upholding Judge Block’s award and his reasoning in this groundbreaking case regarding graffiti art.

Last summer, Grossman LLP was pleased to announce a major victory in an important lawsuit arising out of the massive Chowaiki scandal.  And today, just several weeks after Judd Grossman argued the appeal in the First Department Appellate Division, that ruling has been upheld, paving the way for efforts to recover the Chagall painting.

This week, a federal court handed a decisive victory to the Helwaser Gallery and its owner, Antoine Helwaser, in a long-running dispute over a sculpture by famed artist Alexander Calder.  The summary judgment decision, penned by Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York, overwhelmingly accepted the arguments advanced by Grossman LLP on behalf of Helwaser. 

For years now, we have followed the bitter dispute between Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian billionaire, and his onetime art dealer, Swiss businessman Yves Bouvier.   Now, a new ruling permits Rybolovlev-affiliated entities to move forward with claims that auction house Sotheby’s facilitated Bouvier’s purported fraud.  (The news comes on the heels of last month’s announcement that Sotheby’s is being acquired by French-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi, in a deal that will take the auction house off the publicly-traded stock market and put it back in private hands.)

A three-judge panel for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with the lower court’s decision that the Metropolitan Museum of Art may keep a “rose period” Picasso painting despite claims that it was sold by a German-Jewish family to escape Nazi persecution in Italy during World War II.  See Zuckerman v. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Case No. 18‐634, -- F.3d – (2d Cir., June 26, 2019).

We have written on several occasions (see here, here, and here) about the tangle of disputes that have arisen from the discovery of multiple suspected forgeries of Old Master artworks.  Now, one such dispute has reached a settlement, and another has resulted in a judgment for Sotheby’s; but other questions about these works, and the Old Master market generally, remain.

​Last week, a cathedral in Germany agreed to turn over a valuable painting to the heirs of the family from whom it was stolen during World War II.  The case marks another example of the type of negotiated restitution that has become an important factor in art disputes in recent years, but stands in stark contrast to another dispute that ended in defeat a few months ago for the heirs of a Jewish art dealer who fled Germany in the years leading up to World War II. 

In a unanimous decision earlier this month, the Supreme Court resolved a debate that impacts would-be copyright infringement litigants. 

We here at Grossman LLP, along with many other legal commentators, have been following with interest the lawsuits against appropriation artist Richard Prince arising out of his controversial New Portraits works, first shown at the Gagosian Gallery in 2014, which Prince created from screen shots of photos taken by other Instagram users.  The court is now considering the defendants’ motions for summary judgment on the issue of fair use, which have been fully briefed.  But along with the main event—the summary judgment motion—the court is also considering additional motions filed by both parties with regard to each other’s expert witnesses.  These motions are worth examining because they will presumably be resolved along with the summary judgment decision, and they raise some interesting questions that may have implications in the larger arena of fair use case law.

A lawsuit pending in the United Kingdom continues the ongoing debate about how much due diligence buyers must perform when purchasing artwork, including whether such buyers must investigate price histories.   

​A contentious lawsuit is underway between a Manhattan art gallery and its former director over her handling of purportedly-confidential information when she quit her job to accept a position at another gallery.  The case raises potentially important questions about one of the key assets of any art business—information about its customers and contacts. 

Last year, we wrote about the federal lawsuit filed by visual artist Lina Iris Viktor, which alleged that her copyrights in three original artworks were infringed in the music video of a song, “All the Stars,” from the soundtrack of last year’s blockbuster movie Black Panther.   She sued the song’s recording artists—Kendrick Lamar and SZA—as well as the record label and the video’s director and production company, among others.

​One artist’s crusade against what he perceives to be anticompetitive behavior in the New York art world has come to an end—at least for now—as a federal judge dismissed his antitrust claims against five museums.

Ever since Richard Prince’s “New Portraits” project first made headlines, we’ve been following the story—and the copyright implications.  Now, two lawsuits that arose out of that controversial exhibition are headed for a summary judgment ruling. 

Last December, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, gave a speech lamenting the fact that French museums hold a vast array of African art and artifacts, and pledged that, “In the next five years, I want the conditions to be created for the temporary or permanent restitution of African patrimony to Africa.”  At the time, there was little in the way of specific detail about how that might happen, but this past spring, Macron commissioned a study to examine how that objective could be accomplished.  Now, the experts tasked with that study have released a key report that makes a variety of recommendations that, if implemented, would represent a massive repatriation project for France. 

Last week, as reported in Artnet, a court in France issued an order requiring Koons, his business entity, and the Centre Pompidou (a prominent French museum which had displayed the Koons work in question) to pay damages of over $150,000 to Franck Davidovici, the creator of a 1985 clothing ad called Fait d’Hiver.

​On the heels of last week’s post (see here) about Russian art collector Dmitry Rybolovlev’s lawsuit against Sotheby’s, we write now with a brief update.  This week, authorities in Monaco formally named Rybolovlev a suspect in an investigation into allegations of corruption and influence-peddling.
 

The long-running, globe-spanning dispute between two powerful figures in the international art world has taken a new turn, as one of the parties levels formal claims against auction giant Sotheby’s for its role in multiple purportedly fraudulent art deals.  The case continues to shine a spotlight on the often-convoluted and opaque nature of high-end art transactions.

This week, a family dispute over a Max Ferguson painting ripened into litigation, providing a cautionary tale for art collectors who loan their works to institutions and family members.