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Showing posts with label The Journal on Art Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Journal on Art Crime. Show all posts

July 26, 2012

Aviva Briefel's "The Deceivers: Art Forgery and Identity in the Nineteenth Century" Reviewed in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

ARCA Founder Noah Charney reviews Aviva Briefel's book, "The Deceivers: Art Forgery and Identity in the Nineteenth Century" (Cornell University Press, 2006) in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.
Forgery fascinates. Whether a forged painting or Shakespeare play, our interest in fakes and forgeries is akin to our interest in magic. A fake is an illusion, created by a magician/forger who awes us with his (and almost all known forgers have been male) sleight of hand. There is also a Robin Hood element to many forgers. Because unlike art thieves, they tend to work alone or with one colleague, and are not linked to more sinister organized crime, we can admire them from a moral comfort zone. Their crimes are more like pranks in our mind, and they traditionally do not cause more damage than to the owners and the experts who might accidentally authenticate them. And so we can smile at these illusionists called forgers and, with relatively few exceptions, do so without guilt.
This concept of forger-as-magician-as-working-class-hero, showing up the elitist art world, has origins that date back to the 19th century. They likely began before, and the history of forgery (a book on which I am just finishing) dates back far longer. But the 19th century is when individual instances shifted to sociological phenomenon. That story is elegantly described in Aviva Briefel’s The Deceivers: Art Forgery and Identity in the Nineteenth Century.

July 25, 2012

Joshua Knelman's "Hot Art" Reviewed in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

ARCA Blog Editor Catherine Sezgin reviews Joshua Knelman's "Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Art" in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime:
Interpol and UNESCO listed art theft as the fourth- largest black market in the world (after drugs, money-laundering, and weapons). But what did that mean? After I’d been following Czegledi’s career for several years, one point was clear: don’t look at the Hollywood versions of art theft – the Myth. This is a bigger game, with more players, and the legitimate business of art is directly implicated. A lot of the crimes are hidden in the open. Stealing art is just the beginning. Then the art is laundered up into the legitimate market, into private collections, into the world’s most renowned museums. – Joshua Knelman, author of Hot Art Toronto journalist
Joshua Knelman, author of Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art (Tin House Books 2012), introduces to the general reader the international problem of art crime and the limited resources of legal authorities in fighting this problem in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2003, Knelman was just a 26-year-old researcher for the Canadian magazine Walrus, when he stumbled down the rabbit hole of art theft and recovery. A gallery owner hesitant to speak about the theft of $250,000 worth of photographs stolen two years earlier opens up when police arrest a thief who has some of the pieces. Knelman asks to speak to the suspect’s lawyer, leading to a midnight phone call from the thief who has been investigating Knelman. The two meet in a cafĂ© in Toronto. The aspiring reporter is physically threatened, given stolen art, and then lectured by the thief about how the secretive business practices in the legitimate art market actually support art crime. Thus begins Knelman’s adventures through the world of thieves and investigators of looted art.

July 24, 2012

James Cuno's "Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum" Reviewed in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

David Gill reviews James Cuno's book, Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum (The University of Chicago Press, 2011) in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.  Dr. Gill is Head of the Division of Humanities and Professor of Archaeological Heritage at University Campus Suffolk, at Ipswich, Suffolk, England.  James Cuno is president and CEO of The J. Paul Getty Trust.
Cuno is passionate about the contribution of the encyclopedic museum to the cultural landscape of our cosmopolitan world. The implicit statement of his title is a change from the earlier questions that he has raised: Whose Muse? (2004), Who Owns Antiquity? (2008), and Whose Culture? (2009) [see reviews by Gill in JAC 1, 1, Spring 2009, 65-66; 2, 1, Fall 2009, 99-100]. The four core chapters on the Enlightenment, the Discursive, the Cosmopolitan, and the Imperial Museums had their origins in the 2009 Campbell Lectures at Rice University.
Cuno avoids turning his attention to the issue of antiquities. Yet they lurk on the periphery of his text. As I walked around the Greek and Roman galleries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (a good example of an Encyclopedic Museum) in the first weeks of 2012 I had Cuno’s words in my mind as his imaginary viewer engaged with objects on display: “why it looks the way it does, how it might have been made, by whom and where, and what purpose and meaning it may have had for the first people who saw it and all who subsequently came into contact with it before and after it entered the museum’s collection” (pp. 3-4). Signatures of statue bases as well as on Athenian figure-decorated pots may point us to artists of both high and low status. The iconography may provide insights into Athenian social values and indeed myth. Residual paint on funerary stelai reminds us that not all marble was brilliant white. But what about the viewers? How can we understand the reception of such ancient objects when their contexts have been permanently lost? And so often the pieces have no declared collecting histories that will trace their passage from the ground (or even their archaeological context) to museum gallery.

July 11, 2012

Noah Charney's "Lessons from the History of Art Crime" features "Mark Landis: the Forger Who Has Yet to Commit a Crime" in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

Noah Charney's column "Lessons from the History of Art Crime" features "Mark Landis: the Forger Who Has Yet to Commit a Crime" in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.
To trick the art world has been the primary motivation of nearly all of history’s known forgers. The financial gains aside, forgers often seek to fool the art community as revenge for having dismissed their own original creations. Traditionally, this takes two forms: first, forgers demonstrate their ability to equal renowned artists, by passing their work off as that of a famous master; and second, they show the so-called experts to be foolish, by thinking that the forgers’ work is authentic. Money has been only a secondary concern for many of history’s known forgers — an added bonus after the initial thrill of success at having fooled the art community. But one very unusual forger, the subject of an exhibition called “Faux Real” at the University of Cincinnati that opened on April Fools’ Day of this year, is an exception to just about every rule.
Noah Charney is the Founder and President of ARCA and the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Art Crime. Recently a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University, he currently is a professor at the American University of Rome and Brown University. He is the editor of ARCA’s first book, Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World (Praeger 2009) and The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World’s Most Famous Painting (ARCA Press 2011).

July 8, 2012

Ton Cremers on "Rise in Thefts from Museums: Due to Economic Crisis?" in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

Columnist Ton Cremers speculates on the "Rise in Thefts from Museums: Due to Economic Crisis?" in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Mr. Cremers is a security consultant and the founder of The Museum Security Network (MSN). He was awarded the 2003 Robert B. Burke Award for excellence in cultural property protection. Here's an excerpt:
The Museum Security Network (www.museum-security.org) has been on line since December 1996. In the past fifteen years over 40,000 reports have been disseminated about incidents with cultural property, such as thefts, fakes and forgeries, vandalism, and embezzlement. The number of thefts of sculptures from gardens and towns has grown tremendously, so much so that we have stopped trying to record all of them.
This year alone (and this is just a brief summary, far from complete) Stone Age axes were stolen from the Yorkshire Museum, a number of Lord Nelson artifacts were stolen from the Norwich Museum, as well as Buddhas from Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, artifacts worth £1.8m from Durham University’s Oriental Museum, watches from Silverton Country Historical Society museum, a lifeboat from RNLI’s museum; Museum Gouda (in The Netherlands) was robbed of a 17th century religious object, after the museum door was forced open using explosives; the National Gallery in Athens suffered a theft of Picasso and Mondrian paintings; and the Olympia Museum in Greece lost over 70 objects, after a early morning robbery. Thieves have wrenched the horns off stuffed rhinoceroses in European museums: Bamberg, Germany, Florence, Italy, Haslemere Educational Museum, Ritterhaus Museum Offenburg, Germany, Sworders Auctioneers, Stansted Mountfitchet, and more. Officials at Europol, the European Union’s criminal intelligence agency, claim the number of thefts of rhinoceros horns has increased sharply in Europe during the past year. Since 2011, the agency has recorded 56 successful, and 10 attempted, thefts.
According to a U.K. report 75,000 heritage crimes were committed in one year (experts warn that the “alarming” figures show that Britain’s history is being destroyed in an “insidious and often irreversible way” for future generations): the study found nearly a fifth of the country’s 31,000 Grade I or II* buildings were subject to criminal acts, while more than 63,000 Grade II buildings were targeted. The report, compiled by the Council for British Archaeology and Newcastle and Loughborough universities, found that crimes such as metal theft were more likely to occur in the north, while at least 750 sites were hit by “devastating” arson attacks.
All together an alarming development, or is this just business as usual?

The Journal of Art Crime is now available to subscribers.

July 2, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Spring/Summer 2012: Stephen Mihm on "Bordering on Alchemy: A Nation of Counterfeiters"

In the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Stephen Mihm writes on counterfeiting currency which has parallels to the story of art forgery.

Mr. Mihm is an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia. He is the author of A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Harvard University Press, 2007). He is also the co-author (with Nouriel Roubini) of Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance (Penguin, 2010).
Abstract:
Few of us question the slips of green paper that come and go in our purses, pockets, and wallets. Yet confidence in the money supply is a recent phenomenon: prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Instead, countless banks issued paper money in a bewildering variety of denominations and designs – more than ten thousand different kinds by 1860. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. This article, adapted from the 2009 book A Nation of Counterfeiters (Harvard University Press), discusses the origins of American counterfeiting of currency, a story that runs parallel to the story of art forgery.

February 21, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime: Q&A with Paul Brachfeld, Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration


ARCA's Managing Director Joni Fincham interviews Paul Brachfeld, Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Paul Brachfeld began his career in the federal government with the United States Secret Service before transferring to the United States Customs Service and ultimately to the Treasury Department Office of Inspector General. After leaving the Treasury Department, Brachfeld served as the first Assistant Inspector General for Audits (AIGA) at the Federal Elections Commission. Directly prior to assuming his post at NARA, he was the AIGA of the Federal Communications Commission, Office of Inspector General. Brachfeld is responsible for establishing the Archival Recovery Team (ART), which focuses upon detection, investigation, recovery, and prosecution of missing and stolen holdings.

Mr. Brachfeld discusses the creation of the Archival Recovery Team, social media, the tension between access and security, insider theft, and ways buyers can avoid purchasing stolen or fake historical documents or memorabilia.

To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

February 8, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime: Columnist Donn Zaretsky on "Art Law and Policy"

Photo:
Lucas Cranach the Elder
"Adam" and "Eve"
The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA

In his column in The Journal of Art Crime, “Art Law and Policy”, attorney Donn Zaretsky continues the discussion on the case, Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 578 F.3d 1016 (9th Cir. 2009) with California’s passage of Assembly bill 2765 which extended the limitations period for stolen art claims from three to six years from discovery and clarifies that “discovery” means actual discovery.

Donn Zaretsky is an art law specialist at the firm John Silberman Associates. Zaretsky publishes the Art Law Blog at http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/.

To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

February 4, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime: Columnist David Gill on 'Context Matters'

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

In his column “Context Matters,” archaeologist David Gill writes of “Greece and the U. S.: Reviewing Cultural Property Agreements” of Greece’s 2010 formal request to the United States to impose “import restrictions on archaeological and ethnological material from Greece dating to the Neolithic Period through the mid-eighteenth century”.

Gill’s column also covers international looting news from the period from March 2010 through August 2010 in Egypt, Greece, Italy, Japan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

David Gill is Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at Swansea University, Wales, UK. He is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome and was a member of the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. He has published widely on archaeological ethics with Christopher Chippindale. His Sifting the Soil of Greece: The Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919) is due to be published in March by the Institute of Classical Studies in London. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Art Crime.

ARCA blog: Dr. Gill, some of our readers are not schooled in cultural property law, how would you explain to them the lay meaning of Greece's request to the U. S. to impose "import restrictions in archaeological and ethnological material from Greece"?
Dr. Gill: The US has been a signatory to the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) since 1983. However this seems to have made little significant impact on the acquisition policies of public museums and private collectors (as the impact of the “Medici Conspiracy” has shown all too clearly). In the last few years the J. Paul Getty Museum returned a gold funerary wreath that appears to have been removed from an archaeological context in Macedonia, and the New York collector Shelby White handed back a bronze calyx-krater that also appears to come from northern Greece. There are reports in the Greek press that there is a claim on a number of Greek antiquities in a major U. S. university museum. The case of the Aidonia Treasure that appeared on the North American market drew attention to concerns about recent illicit activity on archaeological sites in Greece. The Greek authorities feel that a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) would have an impact on the movement of recently-surfaced cultural objects.
ARCA blog: Why do you think that the agreement stops "through the mid-eighteenth century"? What was the political compromise here?
Dr. Gill: The requested agreement covers material from prehistoric times (Neolithic) right through to the period of the Turkokratia. The MOU statement made it clear that Greek authorities wished to protect post-Byzantine art and materials.
ARCA blog: Would you expect to see any practical changes in how museums or private individuals collect items from Greece? And what kind of items would be included in this agreement?
Dr. Gill: The “Medici Conspiracy” has delivered a wake-up call to major museums and private collectors in North America (and beyond). Museum curators, dealers and collectors can no longer turn a blind eye to the issue. The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) has re-formulated its policy towards the acquisition of archaeological material, and established an online object registry. There needs to be a more rigorous due diligence process by those selling antiquities as well as those making purchases. Collecting histories (I prefer this to the misleading term “provenance” that is so carelessly used in art history circles—but that is another story) need to be carefully documented. The proposed MOU with Greece covers a range of works from Neolithic figurines to ecclesiastical icons.
To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

Photo: Dr. Gill at Rhamnous in eastern Attica, Greece

February 3, 2011

Journal of Art Crime: Columnist Ton Cremers on 'Security & Safety Reflections'

In his column "Security & Safety Reflections", security consultant Ton Cremers, founder of the Museum Security Network, writes about “Tracking and Tracing of Stolen Art Objects” in the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime (Fall 2010). Cremers questions the “not always very trustworthy” marketing of a UK-based company, RFID (radio frequency identification); addresses the complexity of tracking and tracing objects inside and outside museum buildings; and describes the difference between active and passive tags.

Ton Cremers was awarded the 2003 Robert B. Burke Award for excellence in cultural property protection.

To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

January 26, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime: Fall 2010, the Fourth Volume


Cover Design and Illustration: Urska Charney

As Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Art Crime, I'm pleased to introduce a series of posts on articles in the Fall 2010 issue of our journal. The Journal of Art Crime is the first peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal on issues in art crime. Its goal is to promote the study and understanding of art crime, as well as the collaboration of professionals and scholars in the disparate fields affected by art crime. From lawyers to police, from investigators to security directors, from criminologists to archaeologists, from art historians to conservators, art crime is an inherently interdisciplinary field of study which, heretofore, has not received the scholarly and professional attention that its severity warrants. We hope that you will join us for this series of posts and consider subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime, which serves as the perfect way to keep current about contemporary issues in art crime and cultural property protection, and to read the very best and newest scholarship in the field.

Thank you for your support of ARCA and The Journal of Art Crime.

Noah Charney
Founder and President, ARCA
Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Art Crime

November 1, 2010

Former National Archives Department Head Under Investigation

A former department head at the National archives is under federal investigation after Federal agents searched his home last week.  Leslie Waffen had worked at the national archives for 40 years, heading the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video unit. Federal agents seized material from his home last Tuesday and searched his home. There are no details yet about what kinds of items were recovered.

Inspector General Paul Brachfeld is quoted in the TBD piece detailing the investigation last week: "The threat is there. Incidences have transpired and they continue to transpire, and my job is to, A, investigate active cases and, B, educate the public".  Brachfeld offers more details on the National Archives Archival Recovery Team (ART) in the fall volume of the Journal of Art Crime, which will be available in early December. To subscribe see http://www.artcrime.info/publications.  

The Wright Brothers missing Airplane patent
One of the biggest challenges for the National Archives is its role as a repository for the people. It is open to the public, but it contains a massive amount of material. Much of this has not been systematically inventoried. By way of example there are stores of government documents in salt mines in Hutchinson Kansas.  Stored there are dismantled pieces of the hospital room where President John F. Kennedy was treated after he was shot. Given all of this material, and the access the public has, one of the biggest problems will always be insider thefts. The problem of the employees of the archives taking valuable objects and keeping or selling them.  The Government Accountability office recently issued a report on the National Archives after items had gone missing.  Lost items include the Wright Brothers patent for the first airplane, Eli Whitney's patent for the cotton gin, a copy of President Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" speech, as well as target maps of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These insider thefts are a betrayal of one's profession, but also rob future generations of these important pieces of their past.  To see a truly staggering list of missing documents, look at this list of missing historical documents and items.
  1. Elahe Izadi, National Archives agents raid home of Leslie Waffen, former archives department head, TBD, October 29, 2010, http://www.tbd.com/articles/2010/10/national-archives-agents-raid-home-of-leslie-waffen-former-archives-department-head-26544.html (last visited Nov 1, 2010).
  2. Audit Shows Records At National Archives At Risk : NPR,  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130844620 (last visited Nov 1, 2010).
  3. U.S. GAO - National Archives and Records Administration: Oversight and Management Improvements Initiated, but More Action Needed, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-15 (last visited Nov 1, 2010).
  4. Faye Fiore, Guardians of the nation's attic - Los Angeles Times, L.A. Times, August 8, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/08/nation/la-na-treasure-hunters-nu-20100809 (last visited Nov 1, 2010).

February 12, 2010

Blood Antiques

Recently, a variety of news sources carried stories that made reference to an article in the Fall 2009 issue of the Journal of Art Crime by Judith Harris, which discussed the many connections between looted archaeological artifacts and terror. For a both more in-depth study and visual supplement be sure to check out "Blood Antiques," a Belgian documentary by Peter Brems and Wim Van den Eynde featured on Linktv.org.

From LinkTV,
"The European art trade, synonymous with wealth and glamour, has always involved a degree of stolen and smuggled art. Now, Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage is financing terrorism and the Taliban. From Afghans scrabbling in the sand for treasures, to the dazzling show rooms of unscrupulous dealers and private collectors – ‘Blood Antiques’ uncovers one of the most outrageous illegal trades since blood diamonds."

October 7, 2009

Letter from the New Managing Director


Please let me introduce myself. In September 2009, I was named Managing Director of ARCA. As such, I'll be running the organization's daily operations, as well as helping to conceptualize, develop, and implement new projects. I hope to continue the great work founder Noah Charney and so many others have begun, but to do so, I will need your help.

Supporters like you have already allowed us to achieve a great deal in a short amount of time. In just the past year, ARCA launched the world's only Postgraduate program in Art Crime Studies, introduced the Journal of Art Crime, published the book Art and Crime, and consulted governments, law enforcement agencies, museums, places of worship, and other public institutions on art protection and recovery cases. In the next year, we will continue these endeavors and undertake numerous others, about which you'll be able to read in future posts on the ARCAblog.

There are many ways that you can become involved in this important work. Show your support by becoming a member, making a tax-deductible donation, subscribing to the Journal of Art Crime, purchasing Art and Crime, or studying in our Postgraduate program. Just as importantly, we need people to donate their time by volunteering or interning. And we are always looking for contributors to our journal, blog, and podcasts.

Thank you for your interest and support. If you have any questions or comments about our organization, I encourage you to email me. And you'll be hearing again from me soon on the ARCAblog.

I look forward to working with you!

Terressa Davis
director at artcrime.info

March 12, 2009

ARCA Announcements UPDATED

ARCA 2009 Award Winners
ARCA is pleased to announce the winners of its new annual awards. Each year ARCA will award individuals for their outstanding efforts for the protection and recovery of cultural heritage, and the study of art crime. Awards are voted on by ARCA’s Trustees and the Editorial Board for The Journal of Art Crime
The winners of the 2009 ARCA Awards are as follows:

Art Policing & Recovery: Vernon Rapley, Scotland Yard 
Art Security & Protection: Francesco Rutelli, former Italian Minister of Culture 
Art Crime Scholarship: Norman Palmer, King’s College London 
Lifetime Achievement in Defense of Art: Giovanni Nistri, Head of the Carabinieri Division for the Protection of Cultural Heritage 

ARCA honors these individuals for their exemplary work.

Summer Internship in Italy, 2009
ARCA offers a summer internship on location in Amelia, Italy (between Rome and Orvieto) during the Postgraduate Program that we run, from June 1-August 26. Applicants must be proficient in Italian. The work schedule is 25-30 hours per week. Duties include administration, research for our various projects, and aiding students, faculty, and the Dean during the program. Housing in Amelia for the summer and a meal allowance will be provided by ARCA. This presents an excellent opportunity for professional work training in the broad and interdisciplinary field of cultural property protection and work against art crime, while spending a lovely summer in Italy. If you are interested, please thoroughly acquaint yourself with the information about our Program on our website, and contact noah.charney@yale.edu .


ARCA Annual Conference
THE STUDY OF ART CRIME
11-12 July 2009
Amelia, Italy

The focus of this international conference is the academic and professional study of art crime, and how the study of it can help contemporary law enforcement and art protection. ARCA seeks to encourage scholars and students worldwide to turn their attentions to the understudied field of art crime and cultural property protection. The more minds working in the field, and the better the relationship between scholars and professionals (from police to security to the art world), the better protected art will be in the future.

ARCA welcomes submissions of papers for presentation at the conference. Papers should be 20 minutes in length, and should be related to the academic study of art crime or the collaboration between scholars and professionals for the prevention of art crime.

ARCA Members may attend the conference free of charge. A small attendance fee, in the form of a tax-deductible donation to ARCA, is required of attendees who are neither members nor presenters. Tickets may be reserved by email, with limited numbers available.

A complete schedule with further information on the conference, keynote speakers, and beautiful Amelia, Italy, will be available on our website. The conference will include presentation of the 2009 ARCA Awards, and a keynote speech from Col. Giovanni Pastore of the Carabinieri Division for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.

Please send submissions, ticket requests, and inquiries to conference@artcrime.info .