Dutch Artists Threaten Legal Action Over Sale of Their Work

The Professional Association of Visual Artists in the Netherlands is demanding a halt to the eBay auction of works that were given to the national art collection in return for a fixed income for participating artists. The group “has sent a letter explaining their indignation about the affair to the Dutch Minister of Culture,” according to De Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper. (Thanks to Frank van Eykelen, a CultureGrrl reader in Holland, for sending me the translated article.)
Bieke van der Mark reports:
The professional artists association is primarily angry because the ICN has failed to notify artists of their work being auctioned off.
Henk Rijzinga, secretary of the artists’s organization, argued that because, under their agreement with the national collection, “artists always retain the right to ask for their work back temporarily…for exhibitions,” the art cannot legally be sold. “This auction ruins the market,” he added. His group has threatened legal action.
According to De Volkskrant, Marina Raijmakers, a spokeswoman for the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN), which is disposing of the works, said that she was sorry that all the affected artists had not been informed of the sell-off:
The intention was there. We placed ads and sent a letter to as many artists as possible. We could however not hunt down all addresses.
What they could have done, though, is asked for permission from the artists they did find, and refrained from unloading the oeuvre of those who objected or who couldn’t be located.
The article also reports:
The Central Museum, Industrion, Museum for Communication, MuseumGoudA and Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal are culling their collections via eBay, concurrently with the ICN. For the past three months, the works have been offered first to other Dutch museums.
EBay for museum deaccessions? Could it be that’s why Christie’s Live, that auction house’s online sales division, didn’t attract more interest during its first year?