Surrealist painting found in recycling bin at German airport
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
I've seen comments elsewhere noting how German it supposedly is to examine the paper dumpsters only, and to actually be right about it.
So to nip this in the bud, let me state for the record that these are mediocre Germans at best: Oil-on-canvas does not belong in the paper recycling. They should have separated the cardboard box and properly disposed the painting as refuse.
Edit: extremely embarrassing typo corrected (see responses if you really have to know). I was going for self-deprecation, which has traditionally worked out to be less painful than this for post-war Germany. Clearly, I'm mediocre at best myself.
P.S. - Showed your post to some of my German colleagues. They laughed. They never laugh.
To achieve full Germaninality, however, you have to learn not to want it too much. It's really Zen, in a way, if Zen was still and will, rightfully, forever be trying to overcome the industrialisation of genocide.
From wikipedia: "Dalí was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, 'I pinched everything from your uncle Yves.'" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD
It's 97 cm x 1.36 m originally and I need to get back to the MET and see it. Also copyright in circumstances like this needs to suck a surreal clock that looks, tastes, and trains an equivocating hamster exactly as a dick does.
1) the value of the painting and the careless way it was handled suggests subterfuge.
2) Where was this painting during the War? Specifically, after 1933?
3) Is it the subject of any claims?
4) Was this an instance of self-help by descendants of owners who were forced to sell cheaply given the situation in Germany, who had previously not succeeded in their claims?
5) Siemens no longer gives briefcases full of cash to secure foreign contracts. But a painting?
6) Israel is a "no questions asked" jurisdiction when it comes to banking. Scenario: a Russian buyer pays $300k in cash in Israel, the funds are immediately deposited in an Israeli bank. Hard to do that anywhere else (maybe Ciudad del Este, or Northern Cyprus). Seller wires funds out from Israel from time to time, raising no suspicion or tax inquiries.
>An unnamed businessman forgot the canvas—an untitled and undated work by French painter Yves Tanguy—at a check-in counter when boarding a flight [...] He soon realized that the 16- by 24-inch painting, which he’d stored in a flat cardboard box, had gone missing, and upon arriving in Israel, immediately contacted German authorities.
The concern wears off.
The only thing that doesn't wear off is understanding that you wont get any sympathy for the real situations you get into for the rest of your life. That’s the price of admission.
If you're wealthy, why would you expect sympathy for anything other than terminal illness of yourself or your loved ones? (or similar issues you have no control over)
Because for all other issues, you can just call up a service, pay them and have the problem go away.
wealthy people have problems, you can make a lot and improve your own network by simply listening and being that service.
All the problems in my life, for you are a phone call away too.
I tried a few different things, data labeling, custom sewing work, custom car modifications.
Turns out that the work was either done badly when it came to fairly common tasks or people refused to outright do it when it was custom work. I've seen the same thing when I looked at what happened when friends hired others.
Maybe there's a point where you have enough money to hire highly qualified people. But I doubt it's anywhere below $10M net worth. Below that you're just not likely to start handing out $150 per hour for what I would consider fairly standard yard or other work. At least I'm not.
Or maybe the trick is to hire a supervisor as well. So first you hire someone to do the work and then you hire someone to supervise it. Unless of course the supervisor also does a bad job. But then I can hire a supervisor for the supervisor.
Most likely I just wasn't good enough in the hiring process. So I probably should have hired someone to do the hiring for me. But what if I hired the wrong person, because I'm not good at hiring?
Now I'm sitting on piles of money and I'm still doing everything myself.
Just earlier this year, I was quoted $795 to run a thermostat wire 10 feet, no drilling required.
Task Rabbit has people charging north of $80/hr for simple yard work (leaf collection, bush trimming, super standard stuff that a teenager could do).
Sure, I could gamble with a cheap contractor, but if they do something badly, it's going to cost 2x as much to redo it properly.
I honestly don't know if I'll ever reach a net worth where I'm comfortable paying people more per hour than my own job, with the possible exception of doctors.
Instead housekeepers routinely disobey and then lie about it. And a home chef is unrepentant about scratching my pans with metal utensils. They just don’t care. If it were their own things they would put more thought and labor into it.
I have to get on my hands and knees to scrub the floor after some recalcitrant $70/hour pair of maids refuse to do anything more than wipe the grime back and forth with a swiferjet.
it mostly comes down to recommendations though. you shouldn’t expect to find good help immediately. the gig economy platforms make it seem like it, but its not the case.
It's gotten to the point now where I've learned carpentry to make my own custom furniture because I can't find anyone who will do the job decently locally. I do most of my home repairs DIY, because finding a competent contractor that shows up on time, won't cut corners, lie to me, and actually finishes the job is basically impossible. I did all of the work building my race car and I do all my basic car maintenance myself. Even for a job as simple as an oil change, I can't trust common chain stores.
If anything, the "gig economy" has made this situation worse, not better. There's so many people who will put up a Facebook page and advertise themselves as doing some service, and really they're just half-assing it for a what is effectively a fat paycheck for their level of effort and care. There's SO MUCH apathy in the world, so many people that just don't give a shit about the quality of their work in anything they do in life. Finding other people that actually care about doing it /right/, is nearly impossible. Mostly because when I do find those people, they're usually also wealthy and in a different line of work. Turns out, being focused on doing things correctly the first time is valued enough to be a path to wealth, in and of itself.
People seek him out because of his skill, but then upon being told that it might be £600 for interior door to be made, or more, suddenly want him to fit a store bought one. His daily rate is low, but a lot of rich people still don't want to pay for a job to be done properly.
Quite sad to see people buying amazing historic houses and then filling them with ready made fittings, after tearing out the old hand made stuff.
As he likes to make things properly, he rarely takes the 'fitting' jobs - and keeps and restores anything he removes. Someone else usually wants it.
The sad fact is that a bespoke wardrobe costs good money, as do hand made window friends, but they should last for years, centuries even.
Just one of several instances where I found out that local carpenters weren't real carpenters. If you only know how to use power tools and have a pickup truck to get materials at the home store, you're not a carpenter, you're a handy-man. A carpenter should be able to work wood by hand. I aspire to gain those skills myself, and at some point I'll probably re-do the sad work that was done previously. At least they caulked and painted the caulk-line. At some point I plan to install crown moulding, but at this point I've decided I won't do it until I can make it myself.
That‘s traditionally what the gentry used to to do. They had a butler managing the drivers/grooms/groundskeepers and other outdoor staff and maybe valets (reporting to the male head of the household) and if they could afford it also a housekeeper to manage cooks/maids/cleaners (reporting to the lady of the house). Plus tutor/governess as direct reports.
Whereas, if you pick someone who your friend uses regularly, by comparison, your job is no longer work $X to the tradesman but the sum total of $X plus ALL the future business from your friend, who will leave if the tradesman does you wrong.
(Good for him if so! Tax evasion is moral)
That sort of smuggling would normally depend on small high-value items. Not bloody huge ones.
And in general, unless the money is dirty, there should be no particular problem transferring money from Germany to Israel.
In contrast, everybody knows what a gold bullion is.
Passenger: I want to declare this painting.
Customs agent #1: That's revolting. It can't possibly be worth anything. Have a good day.
Customs agent #2: That's revolting. It must be valuable, otherwise nobody would keep it. Pay up!
(Note I don't actually know if the painting is revolting, I only saw a tiny thumbnail of it, and I do like modern art).
Besides, wouldn't it be the seller that's liable for taxes? And if they're trying to hide from Israeli customs then (a) good luck with that, and (b) as far as I can tell, their plan was to... just travel to Israel with the painting? What's the plot here, exactly? I'd at least get someone to paint a few replicas and import them as a set.
Also tax evasion isn't moral.