“Art” is famously difficult to define. To many artists, a definition is either a challenge or an offense. For the art trade, the working definition is pragmatic and fluid – art is a tangible object embodying the creative efforts of…

As the City of Detroit’s (the City) bankruptcy case enters its final phase, and confirmation of its plan of adjustment seems all but certain, the future of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) appears assured. This has not always been…

Photographer Vivian Maier posthumously emerged as an important and previously unknown American street photographer after the contents of her storage lockers were sold at auction in 2007.  The storage lockers contained negatives – many negatives.  But the identity of the photographer…

We typically believe that if we entrust our property to someone else to sell it, the property remains ours until it is sold. However, this may not always be true. If the party into whose hands property has been entrusted…

At the recent Frieze art fair in London, Italian mid-twentieth century work moved briskly. Sotheby’s Italian and Contemporary sales broke records, including the highest price ever paid for the work of Piero Manzoni, whose “Achrome” sold for £12.6 million. Several…

In the United States, with a few exceptions, museums are organized as private charitable trusts or charitable corporations. They derive their purpose from their founders’ charitable purposes. When a museum falters (normally when endowment and other income is insufficient to…