by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Nov 22, 2022 |
2006 Exhibition of Sugimoto’s work at the Hirshhorn Museum (Copyright: Hirshhorn Museum)
Congratulations to our client, Hiroshi Sugimoto. Last week, the Smithsonian Institution broke ground on its new sculpture garden designed by Sugimoto. In attendance was First Lady Jill Biden, in addition to prominent artists, including Jeff Koons and Laurie Anderson. Our client’s project for the Smithsonian is a massive undertaking, revitalizing the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden. The project is anticipated to take at least two years to complete. We had the honor of serving as legal counsel to Sugimoto on this project. We previously served as his legal counsel for the installation of his lobby design at the Hirshhorn Museum, in addition to other notable projects undertaken by the superbly talented artist, photographer, and architect.
We are privileged to have the opportunity to work with talented artists, like Hiroshi Sugimoto, to protect their intellectual property rights and further their artistic visions.
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Nov 8, 2022 |
Last month Leila was quoted by The Art Newspaper and the Observer. With the Art Newspaper she discussed trends in the art market due to the pandemic and resulting lockdowns. In talks with the Observer, Leila spoke about international copyright laws and images in the public domain, including Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” painted over five centuries ago in 1486.
Today Leila was quoted in the NY Times about a recent NFT publicity stunt, the burning of a valuable drawing from Frida Kahlo’s personal diary. The destruction of the work involves copyright issues, fraud implications, and the violation of cultural patrimony laws. Read about the controversial act
here.
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Oct 30, 2022 |
Famous ghost photograph of the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, originally taken for Country Life (first published in December 1936).
Halloween is the night when ghosting means more than not texting back last night’s date. One look in the neighbor’s yard reveals sheeted spirits strung up between branches to give the home a festive glow. However, more and more often these days, reports are flying in of real-life spirits living in domestic dwellings. It’s a chilling prospect – with the real estate market as hot as it is today, moving into a new home with a poltergeist roommate is a possibility. An unknowing buyer might be buying a house that comes with spooky strings attached.
They’re HEEEERRREEEE!
As the New York Times reported last week, more and more people believe in ghosts and think they are cohabitating with an otherworldly roommate. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 65% of Gen Zers (people born between 1997 and 2012) thought their home was haunted, while only 35% of baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) surveyed thought the same. Why are the number of believers growing? Perhaps it is due to more time spent at home during Covid lockdowns; with more individuals working remotely, people are hearing creeks and bumps they never noticed before. Alternatively, the rise in believers may be the result of the reports of the paranormal in the media or a decline in religious beliefs.
If the house-crashing ghost is a friendly one, like Casper, then perhaps the spirited company is an added bonus. In fact, a handful of families have even reported enjoying the company of certain ghostly presences, either because the spirits are benevolent or because the family senses that they may have been dearly departed relatives or friends. So how does someone live peacefully with a spiritual presence? Maybe he or she should adhere to the Korean tradition of memorializing ancestors (“jesa”) which incorporates awareness of and respect toward loved ones who have passed away.
“Who Ya Gonna Call?” (Your realtor?)
Conversely, an aggressive ghost bent on scaring and taunting homeowners is a different story. A reasonable family would not purchase a house that came with a very real and present threat to their lives, imagined or otherwise. Or worse, a house may come with a threatening stalker. This terrifying scenario finds its way into modern culture through shows like “The Watcher” on Netflix. In the show (creepily based on a true story), a couple purchases a home in New Jersey without knowing that danger accompanied the house. As it turns out, a stalker, who terrorized the family with threatening letters, was the free-gift-with-purchase. One would assume that if the couple had known of the stalker’s existence, they would have chosen to live somewhere else.
One Hundred Ghost Stories (Haunted House by Hayashiya Shozo), by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Japan, Edo period, 1800s AD
Framed in this light, a paranormal danger that comes with the house could be considered a “defect.” If it is, then the seller may be required to disclose the defect, depend on the state’s law where the property sits. In New York, where real estate is selling faster than ever, must sellers reveal the presence of ghosts? This question made its way into state law with the entertaining opinion in Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991). In Stambovsky (known as “The Ghostbusters Case”), a couple purchased a house that the previous owner had been marketing as “officially haunted.” In fact, this verbose owner had given an interview to Reader’s Digest purporting the presence of poltergeists in the house (alliteratively entitled “Our Haunted House on the Hudson).
When the new buyers discovered this, they were spooked. They sought damages, or, in the alternative, recission of the contract. The appellate court enabled the scared buyers to rescind the contract, and the court actually incorporated ghost-themed turns of phrase into the official opinion. Phrases like “I am moved by the spirit of equity”, and, “the notion […] is a hobgoblin which should be exorcised from the body of legal precedent,” appear, along with quotations from Ghostbusters and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. If this case teaches its readers anything, it is that, as it turns out, judges can be fun at parties.
The holding turned on the fact that the seller had very publicly declared the house to be haunted (and, so, was legally estopped from claiming it was without paranormal activity). The Court (rather sassily) stated that, even though no reasonable means could be employed to ensure that the house was not haunted prior to sale, the seller (in this case) clearly took advantage of the buyer in “a most unnatural bargain.” The buyer was able to rescind the contract, thus setting the precedent for other New York buyers to argue the same remedy in future cases. New Jersey is the only other state with explicit requirements regarding paranormal activity, requiring a seller to disclose information about potential poltergeists, if asked. As for the rest of the nation? Buyers may want to familiarize themselves with the contract, because it’s often buyer beware when it comes to spirits. If you don’t properly review your contract, your purchase may haunt you for years to come.
Happy Halloween!
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Oct 27, 2022 |
Tiki statuette from the Marquesas Islands (currently in the Louvre)
Those who grew up watching The Brady Bunch re-runs on “Nick @ Nite” (or the popular series Scrubs) may recall a set of spooky episodes: the family’s ill-fated trip to Hawaii. What made the story arc so memorable was not the beautiful scenery, but that the narrative included a mysterious ancient curse. The curse comes into play when Bobby finds an ancient cultural artifact – a small tiki statue – and brings it home. Viewers quickly learn that whoever holds the statue experiences misfortune. The family ultimately returns the statue to a cave in order to break the curse, thus restoring peace and harmony to America’s favorite (1970s) TV family. As for Scrubs, main protagonists Turk and JD wear replicas of the tiki statue and face their own misfortunes, which they attribute to the curse.
These episodes are obviously fictional, but they illustrate an important aspect of cultural heritage; namely, how the provenance of an artwork or cultural artifact can influence modern perceptions and inspire stories that last for generations. In the case of the tiki statue, the modern misfortune attributed to the statue by the Bradys, Turk, and JD became part of its cultural identity.
Provenance
As we have highlighted in previous blog posts, provenance is an essential aspect of cultural heritage objects, as it reflects their history and cultural significance within a larger context. Not only does provenance delineate the proper origin and ownership of a piece, it also illuminates how contemporary culture influences the way an artifact is perceived in modern society. As part of our series of Halloween-themed posts, we are examining paintings, artifacts, and architectural sites whose provenance includes a spooky legend in modern culture. (You can also find last year’s “Unlucky Mummy” blog post here and the ghoulish frescoes of a Roman church here.
A Cursed Painting
The Rokeby Venus is Velázquez’s only surviving nude, and it is known to have a mysterious aura with a tendency to incite psychosis in its viewers. Diego Velázquez, a leading artist in King Phillip IV’s court in Spain, is the artist behind the hauntingly beautiful Rokeby Venus. More correctly referred to as The Toilet of Venus, the work goes by the name The Rokeby Venus in many modern descriptions after the English mansion (Rokeby Park) from where it was located from 1813-1906. The work depicts the goddess Venus gazing at a mirror being held by Cupid, who is shown as serving the goddess while she reclines. The hazy, unfocused gaze of the goddess makes it unclear whether Venus is using the mirror to view her own reflection or whether she is staring judgmentally at the viewer. This visual trick serves to both captivate and unnerve the audience, a dynamic that is particularly heightened by the historical origin of the work.
Velázquez’s seductive portrayal of the goddess of love would have been a bold choice in light of the highly conservative mores of the Spanish court, heavily influenced by Catholicism. While modern viewers may find the piece less shocking than its original audience, the Rokeby Venus could be read as intentionally prurient, given Spanish politics at the time.
Psychosis
Venus’s overt sexuality and youthful beauty pinpoint the origins of the alleged curse. When the work was inherited by the 13th Duchess of Alba as part of her duchy, the renowned beauty hung the portrait on display in her quarters. But like the portrait of Dorian Gray brought to life by Oscar Wilde centuries later, the painting became a sinister reminder of the viewer’s mortality. According to rumor, the aging Duchess seems to have been unfamiliar with the concept of aging gracefully. Incensed by the unchanging youthfulness of Venus, while she, herself, battled the demons brought on by her deteriorating looks, the Duchess is believed to have committed suicide in response. Though there may have been other explanations for her tragic early death, her family and friends attributed the cause to none other than The Rokeby Venus.
When the work was next acquired by Don Manuel Godoy following the Duchess’s alleged suicide, the curse of The Rokeby Venus once again brought about its owner’s downfall. Prior to owning the painting, Godoy was – by all accounts – truly living his best life. As a respected and celebrated politician, he became extremely influential in the Spanish Royal Court. Then, Napoleon came into the picture. Suffice to say, it is difficult to blame the entire collapse of the Spanish imperial empire on a single individual. Even so, Spanish citizens gave it their best shot when they elected Godoy as their universal scapegoat. Godoy was eventually exiled from Spain and became a prisoner of Napoleon himself, later living a life of obscurity in Paris. His extreme reversal of fortune was blamed on the cursed Rokeby Venus.
After ruining Godoy’s life, The Rokeby Venus seemed content to withdraw for a while. During the next few changes of ownership, there were no reports of misfortune brought on by the painting. But then, in 1914, The Rokeby Venus curse reared its head. After being purchased by the National Gallery in London, the painting cast its malevolent spell on its next (and most recent) victim.
The slashed painting
Late on the night of March 10, 1914, English suffragette Mary Richardson broke into the National Gallery. She was armed with a meat cleaver and a single-minded goal: to destroy The Rokeby Venus. After slashing the painting seven times, she was apprehended by museum guards, who were perplexed: why attack this canvas? By way of motive, “Slasher Mary” (as she became known in the press) claimed that the Venus’ bare, rotund backside caused men to “gape at her” all day long, as if spellbound, when they visited the museum. She emphasized that the slashing was done in protest of the lascivious male gaze, and to support the advancement of women in their battle for political rights after the arrest of fellow suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. In light of her statements, we are left to wonder whether Mary was really driven by political dogma, or whether she too was a victim of the madness said to be brought on by the painting’s display, which had lain dormant for a century. While the real answer is unknown, the spooky season invites us to imagine that Slasher Mary was driven to the brink by the painting’s alluring power.
An Unusual History
No matter what your opinion is of The Rokeby Venus’ alleged curse, the documented history of strange occurrences attributed to its ownership has become an important part of the work’s provenance. The stories behind The Rokeby Venus illustrate how all aspects of a work’s life – beginning with its origin and continuing through its interaction in a modern context – create a vivid tapestry of life behind what would otherwise be a merely decorative object. How a culture understands and makes sense of a piece gives the piece context, longevity, and life. For now, we continue to admire The Rokeby Venus, but let’s do so from afar.
The Rokeby Venus’s Provenance
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Oct 19, 2022 |
Santo Stefano Rotondo, off the beaten path in Rome
In modern culture, horror movies set the standard for inciting fear in viewers. A pounding heartbeat, clammy palms, and the tendency to shriek aloud are all symptoms of a good old-fashioned Halloween horror film-fest. Incredibly, art can evoke the same – or even greater – psychological and mental responses in its viewers. This phenomenon is known as Stendhal Syndrome, named after a 19th century author who visited the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence in 1817. Upon visiting the cultural site for the first time, he experienced an intense physical response to the artwork, writing, “I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call ‘nerves’. Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.” If Stendhal had been a woman, he may have swooned and required a swift dose of smelling salts to revive.
While Stendhal’s response was ultimately a positive one, Stendhal Syndrome has a dark side – it is known to provoke negative sensations in the viewer. The symptoms evoked by such artwork can range from physical responses, such as a quickened heartbeat or episodes of fainting, to mental disillusionment and even psychosis.
Gory frescoes covering the walls of the church
In fact, famed writer Charles Dickens found himself experiencing this overwhelming emotion when he visited Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome. What Dickens encountered, which modern tourists can see as well, were gory frescoes depicting the macabre martyrdom of early Christian saints decorating the walls. These 16th century frescoes by Niccolo Circignani are not for the faint of heart: Roman martyrs are shown being flayed, boiled, vivisected, roasted, crucified and burned alive. When Dickens saw them for the first time, had he extreme discomfort. In his writings, he described the art as “a panorama of horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep,” likening his incredulity at the suffering as that of “poor old Duncan, in Lady MacBeth, when she marveled at his having so much blood in him.”
High praise indeed from a man who was known for his way with words. Dickens’ astonishment is matched by the reported reaction of another famous viewer, Pope Sixtus V. He visited the church shortly after the frescos’ initial debut. The Pope, it seems, burst into tears at the beauty represented by the faith of the butchered saints, and could not refrain from weeping.
One of the church’s bloody paintings
What makes these frescoes so memorable – and perhaps likely to cause nightmares for some viewers – is that they are impossibly distressing and even revolting. Not everyone has the stomach to face these depictions. While Circignani’s work speaks to a superior level of artistic mastery, it may be too intense for those uninitiated in the gory martyrdoms of the Catholic faith. Early Christian martyrs met their demise in shockingly disturbing ways, some so gruesome that they are almost unimaginable for modern sensibilities. At Santo Stefano Rotondo, Circignani has imagined these saints’ horrific ends for us, and painted them on the walls for all the world to see. For example, he displayed the torture of Saint Artemius, whose body was squashed between two slabs of stone. Circignani provided exquisite detail for an immersive experience in the saint’s painful final moments. He paints his eyes popping out of his sockets and fecal matter being expelled from his figure. Circignani further embraces the gore in his portrayal of Saint Agatha, whose breasts are in the process of being separated from her body with giant pincers. This Renaissance version of a haunted house – a house of body horrors – keeps intensifying with each depiction: a man on a butcher’s block being hacked apart with a machete, a forest full of amputated limbs dangling from tree branches, a saint carrying his own severed head, intestines bursting from abdomens, and more.
The purpose behind these macabre depictions of extreme torture and unfailing faithfulness in God in the face of persecution finds its origins in the battle between Catholics and Protestants to claim the true heirship of Christianity in the late 1500s. Catholics and Protestants during that time were no strangers to persecution, and the frescoes were meant to incite grit and perseverance in early Jesuit novices entering Santo Stefano, as well as in other faithful Catholics praying in the Church. In some ways, to the novices and other Catholics of the time, the frescoes served the same cultural purpose as athletes on Wheaties do today. The power of the image to evoke courage, heart, and perseverance in the face of difficulty is not new – but the subjects depicted and the artistic tactics used to emphasize such qualities in the viewer have certainly shifted.
For the original patrons of Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, the goal of the frescoes was to shock viewers into a state of religious fervor. Now, they still serve to shock viewers, but may make them more nauseated than prepared to sacrifice life and limb for their faith in unbearably grotesque ways. The contrast between modern and historical reactions to the site emphasize how culture impacts a society’s acceptance – or rejection – of an artist’s work. Many modern viewers may instinctually turn away from the revolting nature of the frescos, when, in fact, Circignani’s intention was to draw the viewer in closer to the artwork as a path for a deeper relationship with God.
Santo Stefano Rotondo is a fantastic example of how the cultural perception of what is “art” and what is “disgusting” can change, depending on the cultural, societal, and political conditions at play for both the artist and the viewer. The full impact of the church is missed if one fails to recognize the full historical narrative of the site, in order to understand the depth of the cultural heritage on shockingly open display. If all else fails, one can at least appreciate Circignani’s macabre creativity in showing us the many shades of death and torture.
The rights in all the photos in this post belong to Leila A. Amineddoleh
