Yep, you heard right. Art Series Hotel Group offered a challenge to Banksy lovers, offering them a chance to own a Banksy art work if they could successfully steal it from one of their hotels.

A huge thanks to our friend, Blaise Niosi, for the heads up on this one.

A source close to the contract negotiations notified Hyperallergic on Wednesday that the union and the museum have had five meetings and are unable yet to settle on a new contract.

Via Hyperallergic. [Note: the article refers at least twice to "contacts," but we believe they mean to say contracts.]

Scientists at Notre Dame have adapted a nuclear physics methodology to quickly determine whether a piece of art is a forgery using accelerated ion beams, without affecting or damaging the artwork.

Via Forbes.

An elderly woman, Jan Cowles, sued the Gagosian Gallery and Larry Gagosian in NY County Court, claiming it allowed her son to sell a major work by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, without her permission, for far less than its true value. The woman claims that her son Charles Cowles, an art dealer in New York City, sold her Lichtenstein enamel, “Girl in Mirror,” out of financial desperation, while his mother suffered “moderate to severe dementia.”

Cowles wants her artwork back and $10 million in punitive damages for fraud, conversion, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment.

Via Courthouse News Service.

Younger Lawyers Division of The Federal Bar Association of the Southern District of New York presents:

The Second Annual

“ART, LAW & BEER”

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 6:30 p.m.

The heirs of the famous Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Government of the Canton of Basel-Stadt announced today that they have agreed to resolve the Heirs’ claim to works by Malevich (two gouaches “Landscape with Red Houses” and “The Washing Woman” and a series of approximately 60 drawings made by Malevich and his assistants) that have been in the possession of the Kunstmuseum Basel.

Link coming soon.

From The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat:

The Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat announced that it will dissolve in September 2012 and no longer consider applications thereafter. The Authentication Committee has been in existence for eighteen years and has reviewed over 2,000 works of art. It believes that it has fulfilled its goal of providing the public with an opportunity to obtain an opinion as to the authenticity of works purportedly created by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Committee wishes to take this opportunity to thank all the people who worked on its behalf.

Problem? Students surf the web too much.

Our good friend, Ingrid Chu, sent this story along.

Last month, artist Yoshitomo Nara casually announced in Japanese over Twitter that two counterfeit paintings had been included in his ambitious publication Yoshitomo Nara Complete Works 1984–2010. “…I have been looking through my Catalogue Raisonné! … drawing #203 and 204 are forgeries… sorry to tell you after they are already released,” he said.

Via Art in America.

Is this copyright taken to the extreme? Remember kids, ideas are not protected by copyright.

Via Boing Boing.