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FBI Offers $25K Reward For Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Painting Heist (networkworld.com)
coondoggie quotes a report from Networkworld: The FBI today said it was offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the recovery of seven Andy Warhol paintings stolen from the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Missouri. The collection, which has been owned by the Springfield Art Museum since 1985, is set number 31 of the Campbell's Soup I collection and is valued at approximately $500,000. Each painting in the screen print collection measures 37 inches high by 24.5 inches wide and framed in white frames, the FBI stated. The FBI says that seven of 10 Andy Warhol paintings Campbell's Soup I collection, made in 1968, were taken. Since its inception, the FBI's Art Crime Team has recovered more than 2,650 items valued at over $150 million.
That way everyone can enjoy it and no one can steal it.
Seconded. It's not like a Pollock where you need actual talent.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Given that it happened in Springfield, may I suggest investigating one C. Montgomery Burns, and possibly "Fat Tony" D'Amico?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It's in the best interests of a state and its citizens to stop crime, so we employ people to do it. If a reward can get the authorities a lead more efficiently than paying an investigator that much salary for the time it would take, then it's in the peoples' best interests to see their taxes used that way.
In this case, the taxpayer is the victim. Using government money to promote this scam "art" means more will be produced, which is a tragedy.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I really hope the money for the reward was funded by the insurance company, not the taxpayer. Otherwise that's taking corporate welfare to a whole new place.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And the FBI implores the public to allow them access to their iPhones and to disable disk encryption to assist them in finding these terroristic painting thieves before more innocent lives are lost!
We can't budge on this people! Encrypt your phone and owners of campbell's soup paintings will starve dead in the streets!
where does the FBI think it has 25K to offer up?? I mean yes its a shame, but shouldnt reward money be paid for by the victim, not the taxpayer???
Most likely, it's the insurance that is offering that reward and the FBI is just acting as an intermediary.
And saying that the FBI is offering that money ensures that people don't flood the insurance company's normal business phone number.
Seems to me that if the FBI has $25k to offer in reward money, it would be better spent on recovering the stolen cars of people who can barely make ends meet and needed their cars to get to work.
Or is that not how these things work?
If someone assaults you and breaks your leg, should your health insurance pay to find and arrest the guy who did it? If a serial arsonist is going around torching homes, should individual victims pay for the police to track him down?
Are you serious or am I being trolled?
The FBI will expend resources to find the person / people who committed this crime. That is what the FBI exist to do. In order to do this they will have to use man hours and equipment which will have a $ value and, through extensive experience, they will be able to make a remarkably accurate estimation of how many man hours and resources they will consume and what their % chance of catching the person will be.
If they can spend $25k on a tip, and that reduces the man hours used and or it increases the % chance of capture then it is the FBI spending money on what it is required to do.
Unless of course you are trying to argue that some criminal law shouldn't be enforced because you don't think it's important or the victims are a people / group you think aren't worthy of receiving FBI support.
They had $15k to spend on an iPhone, and that data was of far lower value than this would be. After all, if it's a tip that proves useful, then they'll pay you the $25k. So $25k gets them a guaranteed recovery and/or arrest, versus spending $15k on a dubious recovery.
One could also argue the $25k to recover the art would be of far more value to society than the $15k they spent on the iPhone.
It's curious you'd mention Pollock, because some of his works look like cans of paint randomly thrown onto a canvas. Not all of them, but some certainly do.
I agree with you completely. There's a Pollock at the museum in Omaha that looks for anything like a cat puked on the canvas.
OTOH, a famous Pollock painting will draw you in, and have a sort of fundamental emotional appeal that keeps you wondering why the painting is so engaging.
Scientific American once did an analysis of some of Polluck's paintings, along with other painters who painted in the same style but which aren't as successful as Pollock.
The analysis found that Pollock's paintings have a fractal quality that other painters (in the same style) don't have, leading to the conjecture that it's this quality that makes his paintings so engaging.
There's a Picasso at the Currier Gallery of Art which I think is awful and completely pointless, yet I can stare at Guernica all day.
And finally, if you ever go to the Detroit Institute of Art you'll find Fuseli's The Nightmare, which is completely and totally ho-hum in any reproduction, including images on the internet, but which is captivating when seen in person.
(And I was astonished when I saw my first real Rembrandt portrait (the one at Omaha). These are also ho-hum from a distance and through the internet, but to see one in person... wow!
Many people don't get why art is so pleasing. I suspect it's because they only have 2nd hand exposure, through reproductions, the internet, TV, and so on.
So in summary, I agree with you completely, but note that "art is where you find it". Not every work of every master is a masterpiece, and if you dig in the dirt you'll eventually uncover a few treasures.
It works in two ways. The first is:
"I know dave stole the painting. But cops are fucking pig scum bags. Like fuck I'm gunna tell them anything. Not to mention if I did it would be a total fucking hassle. But for $25k, I never liked Dave anyway"
The second:
"Pretty sure I saw a car like the one they were talking about yesterday but I'm sure someone else will have got a better view of it / will be the person to call let the cops know. And I'm probably wrong anyway so I wont bother" "But $25k reward. Well it can't hurt to make a quick call and see if I can get it"
That way everyone can enjoy it and no one can steal it.
It is enormously difficult to capture a sense of depth and texture in a scan. It is no coincidence that Jackson Pollack began as a muralist. The 23" 16:9 screen doesn't do him justice.