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"Opponents to monetizing the Pollock have been forcefully vocal"

By Intellectual Property Law, Esq.

I like Lee Rosenbaum's one-line description of the general reaction to the news that the University of Iowa was considering maybe, possibly, perhaps finding out what it could get for its Pollock in a sale to a public institution that would agree to lend it back to the school from time to time: "bemoaners of the lost art have been noisily catastrophizing."

Tyler Green has been referring to it as a potential "forced deaccessioning," but I'm not sure how that's any different from a regular old unforced deaccessioning. He also gets a statement from the governor's office -- and buries the lede! It seems the governor supports a sale to the Des Moines Art Center ("Governor Culver believes the University of Iowa's Jackson Pollock 1943 Mural is a treasure that belongs to the people of Iowa, for the people of Iowa, and should be preserved for future generations of Iowans"). Just kidding, though I think it's fair to say it's not the most unequivocal statement anyone ever issued (they should "seek insurance payments and federal [flooding] recovery dollars to which they are entitled first before it's even necessary to consider selling off irreplaceable assets" -- presumably after that, then it's okay).

Full post as published by The Art Law Blog on August 13, 2008 (boomark / email).