Robbery and Bloggery
June 8th, 2010Sunday’s New York Times magazine takes a look at the world of art theft related blogs, spotlighting one such blogger in particular who features himself as a go-between of sorts in the exchange of (often shady) communications between the bad guys and the good guys. Both of which types, he asserts, read his blog to find out what the others are up to. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06FOB-medium-t.html
As the article notes, the recent brazen thefts from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, where paintings were apparently wrenched from the wall during an ongoing security system outage, has had the blogosphere all atwitter for weeks. Not to mention the offices of art handling companies such as ourselves around the world. A security system lapse, with no backup? No Rfid tags on paintings of that value? Not even a guy watching them?
Many hospitals today affix Rfid tags to newborns via leg bracelets or similar, and warn new parents not to stray from a designated area in the nursery zone lest alarms sound, exit doors close and lock, and gendarmes come running. For babies, yes, but not for Matisse and Picasso? Incroyable!
I suppose there will always be ingenious theives who will find their way around whatever technologies are deployed against them, but we should at least give them a run for their money. Or I should say, for our money. Make it too easy and even the art theives turned bloggers may think again and go back into the trade.
Or maybe this is one of those tricky film plots where the good guys let the bad guys take the loot in order to trace the thieves back to their den of filched old masters, hidden in hollowed out loaves of, but of course, french bread. Which are then recovered by Peter Sellers but left in the police van while he updates his blog, only to be, heartbreakingly, stolen from the unlocked van and and eaten by hungry college students incapable of discerning between aged canvas and charcuterie.
We wish the pros success in restoring these works to public view. And for all you art thieves who apparently spend a lot of time reading blogs like this, please know that you can drop off hot artworks at our dock any weekday by 5 PM. I’m not saying that we’re affiliated in any way with the Los Angeles Police Department Art Theft Detail, or have actually helped them solve any cases, but but let’s just say we know how to open a crate and look inside, if you catch my drift.
BetsyDorfman
Tags: art theft, Matisse, Museum of Modern Art in Paris, New York Times, Picasso, RFID tags, security system