Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives through the Secret World of Stolen Art creeps up on you. Wickedly entertaining, it turns out to be informative, unexpected and far more thought-provoking than its cheeky 007-ish cover would suggest. Joshua Knelman’s in-depth investigation of the international trade in stolen art may read like a TV crime novel, but it delves deeper than that, deftly allowing art theft to serve as an extended metaphor for exploitive, unregulated, free-for-all global capitalism.
The art world is, of course, notoriously rarified and insular to the point of secrecy. It trades in expensive objects of uncertain provenance that pass through many hands and cross international borders. Dealers need not reveal their sources or publicize what they have stashed away in the backroom; many deal from home. Gallery transactions, auction bidding, donations to public institutions in exchange for juicy tax writeoffs: all can be carried out in tasteful...
Joyce Kline is an artist, writer and playwright. She migrated from the United States to Canada in 1971, armed with a hand butter churn and a well-thumbed copy of the Whole Earth Catalog.
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