Not an easy snatch and grab

A thief managed to make off with a piece of a copper sculpture as it was being installed in a New York park.

The piece was part of an exhibition of Vietnamese artist Danh Vo's work "We the People", organised by the Public Art Fund. We the People is a life-size replica of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty, recreated by Danh Vo in about 250 individual pieces.

One part of We the People

MyFoxNY reports that the robbery took place last week in City Hall Park - one of the locations of the exhibition, which was due to open on 17 May. The piece taken was a large, chain link section made of copper resembling a portion of the Statue of Liberty's foot. It is said to weigh about 40lbs and be worth about $6,000.

It does not appear that the theft has impacted on the opening of the exhibition, which can now be seen in both City Hall Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park. The police are investigating.

More details on the exhibition can be found here.

Illustration NOW!

Illustration is a vast and often unappreciated discipline but its undisputed king, in the UK at least, must be Quentin Blake. Roald Dahl created the BFG, the Twits and Matilda and Quentin Blake brought them to life.

It was thus a pleasure to spend Wednesday night in the company of Mr Blake who was speaking at yet another fantastic event organised by Collyer Bristow’s gallery. Quentin (we have been in the same room and are therefore definitely on first name terms) was raising both awareness and, more importantly, money to help fund the House of Illustration, which will become the first dedicated illustration centre when it is finally built in the King’s Cross development zone, London. The artistic and legal communities combined last night to help realise this aim with a selection of prints on sale all in response to the question “what are you like?”.

You can help support this great cause and purchase a limited edition print here.

If you’re worried you missed out last night, fear not. The art and legal communities are combining again in the New Year for an Illustration Cupboard organised exhibition of Tony Healey’s illustrations to the John Mortimer classic series – Rumpole of the Bailey.  The exhibition runs from 20 February to 3 March 2012 at the Illustration Cupboard, in London. The full details are not yet available online but this blog will be updated as soon as they become available.

Rumpole considers how best to present his case in this Tony Healey classic illustration

How about Sitters' Rights?

Art and Artifice has just heard from intellectual property enthusiast and Collyer Bristow partner Joe Cohen, who informs us that his firm's Art Gallery hosts regular exhibitions of the work of up-and-coming artists (details of the current exhibition can be seen here).  Joe adds:

"Of interest to subscribers to “Art and Artifice” will be an event which we are hosting in our Gallery behalf of the Law Society Art Group from 9 March 2011 from 18:00 to 20:30.  Guest speaker is Martin Gayford, who will be speaking about sitting for Lucien Freud. Martin Gayford is the author of the book: Man with a Blue Scarf, subtitled “On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud”.

Places are limited, so subscribers to Art and Artifice who wish to attend the event are asked to email Darren Butt by 26 February 2011.

Art and Artifice is already thinking up lots of questions to ask.  How about the introduction of Sitters' Rights, which seem to have eluded the architects of the Berne Convention on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works ...?

Russia – Art in Revolt

If Simone’s post on the new law that threatens Russia’s art collections interested you then you may want to visit the Chto delat? (What is to be done?) - The Urgent Need to Struggle exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art. I’m sure this group of artists and activists will have something to say about this new legislation as their work advances a leftist position on economic, social, and cultural agendas. This project and exhibition seeks to merge political theory, art and activism. It is realised by a Russian collective of artists, philosophers and writers whose ideas and observations are rooted in post-perestroika Russia and in principles of self-organisation and collectivism.

The work is not limited to “art” in its most traditional format, but instead seeks to explore art through less traditional mediums such as publication of a regular newspaper, videos, installations, public actions and radio programmes.

This Free exhibition is well worth a visit, but be warned, it ends tomorrow...