The first instalment was locally made
WILLISTON — The 34th annual Central Florida Peanut Festival is still a few months away. However, preparations for arguably the city’s biggest event of the calendar year are already well underway.
This year, in conjunction with the festival, the event’s organizer, the Williston Area Chamber of Commerce, is also sponsoring a photography and pumpkin decorating contest.
Applications for the two contests are available now and can be picked up in the chamber’s office at Williston City Hall (50 NW Main St., Williston) or be requested via email to CFLPeanut Festival@gmail.com.
There are three divisions for the festival’s photo contest. Children (ages 6-11), youth (ages 12-16) and adult (17+). The photos submitted must follow the theme of the contest, which is “Williston Loves Peanuts.”
Ideas related to this theme include: Planting, grading, harvesting, eating and food.
Other rules for the photo contest are seen below.
– All photographs entered into contest must be the work of the person whose name appears on the first line of the form.
– Photographs should not have been published anywhere in the last 12 months.
– Photos do not have to be matted or framed but must meet the minimum size of 5×7 inches.
– Photographers should tape their name and the name of the entry on a small piece of paper and affix it to the back of the photo.
Entries can be dropped off at the chamber’s office Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. They can also be mailed to P.O. Box 369, Williston, FL 32696 from noon July 17 – noon Sept. 20.
Winners in each category will be announced Thursday, Sept. 28 and awarded a cash prize at noon Saturday, Oct. 7 during the peanut festival.
Winners should bring identification with them to claim winnings and also agree to be photographed for various media outlets.
The top 5 entries in each category will be on display during the festival and can be returned to the photographer at the end of the event.
Any photograph not picked up in the chamber’s office by Thursday, Oct. 19 will become property of the chamber.
As for the pumpkin decorating contest, there are three age groups. Child (ages 4-9), youth (10-16) and adult (17+). The theme is “Autumn in Williston.”
Rules are explained below.
– All decorated pumpkins entered into contest must be the work of the person whose name appears on the first line of the form. All entrants must be amateurs – never compensated for their art.
– Pumpkins may be any size but no larger than 36 inches in circumference.
– Pumpkins should be decorated to the theme (Autumn in Williston) and any medium (example: Oils, markers, crayons, etc.) may be used.
– Decorators should secure their name and the name of the entry on a piece of paper and affix it to the pumpkin along with the top of the form.
Entries can be dropped off at the chamber’s office Monday, Oct. 2 through Thursday, Oct. 5, from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Judging will take place during the evening of Oct. 5.
Winners from each category will be announced on social media Friday, Oct. 6 and awarded a cash prize at noon Saturday, Oct. 7 during the festival.
Winners should bring identification with them to claim winnings and also agree to be photographed for various media outlets.
The top 5 entries in each category will be on display during the festival and can be returned to the owner at the end of the event.
Any pumpkin not picked up at the festival will become property of the chamber. Additionally, pumpkins that do not place in top 5 must be picked up at the city hall by Tuesday, Oct. 10.
The 34th annual Central Florida Peanut Festival will take place Saturday, Oct. 7, from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at Heritage Park (116 N. Main St., Williston).
According to Carolyn Ten Broeck, the chamber’s executive director, the festival is “75 percent booked on vendor spots.”
The recent sentencing of the Palm Beach art dealer Daniel Elie Bouaziz, after he pled guilty to laundering money from the sale of counterfeit works by artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, raised eyebrows in May. Not because of the crime (it is hardly the first time a Warhol has been faked) but because of the sentence itself—27 months, plus three years’ supervised release and a $15,000 fine. In comparison to recent fraud and laundering sentences in the art market, two years and three months seems pretty lengthy.
That is not to say that the crime was inconsequential. Sales of fakes for between $75,000 and $240,000 are clearly significant to the victims (indeed, one bought five works totalling $860,000). But given the scale of the crime, two years and three months appears punitive when compared with the three-and-a-half years given to the former art dealer, Angela Gulbenkian, for charges linked to the fraudulent sale of a $1.4m Yayoi Kusama sculpture; or the 18 months received by the Manhattan dealer Ezra Chowaiki in 2018 for scams totalling over $16m. It is even more jarring considering the 82 days spent in prison by the dealer Glafira Rosales for her role in the Knoedler Gallery fraud case, which involved works valued at over $80m.
So, are the courts still confused about how to handle art crimes?
The logic behind sentences can appear bewildering if not considered in the context of the myriad factors underpinning a judge’s decision.
“It is not an apples-to-apples comparison with each case,” warns Georges Lederman, a New York-based special counsel at Withers. “Although wire fraud and laundering crimes carry a maximum statutory term of incarceration of 20 years [which is rarely imposed], the underlying conduct of each case is different. It is not the nature of the asset involved in the fraud—in this case, art—that determines the sentence to be imposed.”
Lederman adds that circumstances considered within sentencing include the characteristics of the defendant; the loss amount to the victim; the potential deterrent effect on the defendant; the need to avoid sentence disparities among similarly situated defendants; and restitution to the victims. Jurisdictions also vary in severity of approach.
Glafira Rosales (centre) served 82 days for her part in an $80m fraud involving Knoedler Gallery, the judge acknowledging she had suffered domestic abuse Photo: Jefferson Siegel/NY Daily News via Getty Images
Judges will often note their reasoning. When sentencing Rosales, Judge Katherine Polk Failla explained her belief that the former’s situation within an abusive relationship and concern for her daughter would “exactly motivate what you did”, and subsequently decided to not return her to jail.
Nevertheless, there is a growing sense of injustice in debate around convictions concerning fraud or laundering within the market.
“My view is that these fraudsters tend to get off easily,” says Christopher Marinello, the founder and chief executive of Art Recovery, which represented a victim in the Gulbenkian case. “In the art world, if you are white, rich—or Instagrammably rich, with fake wealth—the justice systems in many Western countries go easy on the perpetrators. Art crime is considered a rich person’s problem. If you are lucky enough to get a conviction and a money judgment, good luck getting back your artwork or stolen funds.”
The majority of criminal cases are linked to subsequent civil litigation and claims, but criminal sentences remain significant as a message.
Judd Grossman, a US-based attorney who has represented buyers defrauded in major cases, including victims in the indictment brought against Chowaiki, notes the example of Inigo Philbrick, where the court “specifically noted the strong message that a hefty sentence there would potentially send to would-be fraudsters”.
“Especially given the last decade-plus of high-profile art-fraud cases, our courts are becoming increasingly aware that some aspects of the art market make it particularly vulnerable to fraud, heightening the need for deterrence in sentencing, in addition to the punitive component,” Grossman adds.
Concern from governments does not necessarily filter down into sentencing guidelines, which primarily focus on types of crime, rather than on the assets or sectors involved. An exception to this was seemingly made in 2016 in the UK, however, when the Sentencing Council issued specific advice for sentencing on theft offences involving heritage or works of art.
The apparent ease with which scams are seemingly growing in number is concerning. That Anna “Delvey” Sorokin launched a much-hyped podcast from her apartment—while still under house arrest for multiple counts of larceny and lying about owning a $67m trust fund in order to set up an arts foundation—is a case in point.
“Prices for art have soared; the market has seen an increase in opportunities for bad actors to engage in ever more audacious types of fraud,” Lederman says. “This trend has not gone unnoticed by the courts, and we should expect to see sentences for art-related crimes increase as a consequence”.
Who? Daniel Elie Bouaziz
What? Selling counterfeit works of art from his gallery
When? May 2023
Where? Miami, US
How long? 27 months’ imprisonment, three years supervised release, $15,000 fine
Who? Inigo Philbrick
What? Pled guilty to an $86m wire fraud, including selling works to multiple investors, without the others’ knowledge
When? May 2022
Where? London, UK, and US
How long? Seven years and ordered to pay $86m forfeiture
Who? Ezra Chowaiki
What? Defrauding art dealers and collectors of more than $16m
When? September 2018
Where? Manhattan, US
How long? 18 months
Who? Timothy Sammons
What? Using art to defraud clients, between $10m to $30m thought to have been stolen
When? July 2019
Where? US, UK and New Zealand. Jailed in New York state, US
How long? Four to 12 years
Who? Angela Gulbenkian
What? Fraudulently claiming to sell a sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, valued at £1.4m
When? July 2021
Where? UK
How long? Three and a half years
Who? Subhash Kapoor
What? Burglary and illegal export of idols belonging to the Varadharaja Perumal temple. Wider claims of an international smuggling operation have suggested more than $140m worth of transactions can be linked to him
When? November 2022
Where? Kumbakonam, India
How long? Ten years
Who? Glafira Rosales
What? Pled guilty to charges of wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion within the Knoedler & Co fraud case
When? January 2017
Where? US
How long? 82 days in jail and nine months of house arrest
Who? Gary Snell
What? Selling unauthorised sculptures by Auguste Rodin (his associate, Robert Crouzet, received a shorter sentence for his role)
When? April 2019
Where? France
How long? One year suspended sentence and €500,000 damages to the Musée Rodin.
Who? Michael Zabrin
What? Multi-million-dollar, international fake art ring
When? June 2011
Where? Chicago, US
How long? Nine years. His second prison term—in 1992, he pleaded guilty to selling $800,000 worth of counterfeit fine art prints and served a reduced one-year term after he helped authorities convict another fraudulent art dealer
Who? Lawrence Salander
What? Pleaded guilty to 29 felony counts of grand larceny and one count of scheming to defraud, for his role in unauthorised sales of art (totalling an estimated $120m)
When? March 2010
Where? New York, US
How long? Six to 18 years in prison
The Dallas Center for Photography will close for good on 4 August after five years under its current structure and more than two decades of offering classes and other events under different guises.
The organisation, the only non-profit in north Texas devoted to photography, started out as an informal series of classes offered by the photographer Peter Poulides in 1997. That eventually led to pop-up events at partner organisations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and, eventually, a more formal programme with classes, photo equipment swaps, workshops and exhibitions. In 2018, this officially became the non-profit Dallas Center for Photography (DCP).
Over the years the centre received support from philanthropists, regional funding organisations and corporate sponsors, including the city of Dallas’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Texas Commission on the Arts. The centre also held regular fundraising events, most recently in early June. However, according to a statement by Poulides, funding and support were increasingly insufficient to maintain the centre’s programming and its facilities in the Design District. In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, he said that the financial challenges of operating a non-profit were exacerbated by the pandemic, but also by the lack of support for arts organisations in Dallas.
“Even as DCP was setting down strong roots in the greater arts community in Dallas, there was a growing gap between the resources supporting our organisation and the financial needs of running it,” Poulides said in the statement. “It is a story all too common in the nonprofit world. And as a nonprofit, we are legally and morally charged with serving the community while being fiscally responsible and sustainable. It became increasingly clear that the gap couldn’t be managed, and shutting down now was the responsible thing to do for the organisation and the community.”
The centre’s final round of events and classes concluded at the end of July. Its final exhibition, a show featuring seven local women photographers and titled When We Speak, You Should Listen!, closes the same day as the centre itself, on 4 August. The centre will then host a going-out-of-business sale on 12 and 13 August.
While other Dallas art institutions have photography collections, the DCP was the only local organisation devoted exclusively to the medium. The nearest similar institution may be the Houston Center for Photography, which launched more than 40 years ago and offers a similar mix of exhibitions and educational programming. Houston is also home to the biennial FotoFest, one of the world’s largest and most closely watched photography exhibitions.
Many feared the pandemic would lead to the permanent closure of numerous art organisations, with nearly 30% of museum directors expressing concern that their institutions might never reopen in a survey conducted six months into Covid-19 lockdowns. That wave of closures never came, but a handful of smaller and mid-size regional institutions have closed in the pandemic’s aftermath, from the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Barbara, California. After initially claiming it would close completely, the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, managed to salvage its film programme.
Larger institutions have struggled too, particular as visitor numbers continue to lag behind pre-pandemic levels. Many have scaled back educational offerings and other special programming. Others have raised admission prices—most recently the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York—to make up for lower attendance and rising operating costs.
This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene. Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon.
As with many Pittsburgh neighborhoods, it’s hard to recall how different the stretch of Penn Avenue through Bloomfield, Garfield and Friendship was in 1998 — the year of the first Unblurred monthly art crawl.
Unblurred grew out of the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, an effort by community-development groups to enliven the street with art galleries, studios and the like. (The idea was to reverse the “blur” of the strip’s storefronts through motorists’ car windows.)
At the time, the street was home to some neighborhood-serving retail, but in terms of visitor attractions, there wasn’t much more than a handful of small restaurants; Garfield Artworks, a gallery and event space; and, nearer to Negley Avenue, the studios of Dance Alloy.
But by the mid-2000s, with help from new additions like the Pittsburgh Glass Center and Modern Formations gallery, Unblurred was the place to be for local arts types every first Friday.
And, despite changes in venues and feel over the years, it’s both the longest-running monthly art crawl in town and the biggest. (The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Gallery Crawls individually draw more people, but are quarterly.)
It certainly felt that way at the July 7 Unblurred. Given good weather, the corridor was teeming with visitors ducking into galleries, heading to restaurants, sampling the food, beverages and crafts on offer from sidewalk vendors, and even listening to live music played by an acoustic combo using a front porch for a stage.
In truth, the crawl is less art-centric than during its initial heyday, a decade or more ago. Galleries like Garfield Artworks, Modern Formations and Most Wanted Fine Art have closed. Some tenants, like dance troupe Attack Theatre (which used to host game nights during Unblurred), have come and gone. Others have moved in and stayed, including Bunker Projects and Assemble: A Community Space for Art + Technology.
There have been more recent art-based additions, including the venerable Silver Eye Center for Photography, which relocated to Penn in 2017, and the Pedantic Arts Residency, which opened last year. But in latter years, most of the newcomers have been brick-and-mortar eating and drinking establishments (Two Frays, Soju, Mixtape), vintage stores, and those aforementioned street vendors, who add so much life to the scene.
There’s also the Garfield Night Market, a collection of 20 or so vendors who take over a block of North Pacific Avenue every Unblurred. The Night Market, which began a decade ago, hosts live entertainment and local vendors of everything from food to crafts.
One of the newest attractions, since May, is a sort of indoor bazaar organized by Boheme Pittsburgh, the Lawrenceville business incubator that rents space to makers of artwork, jewelry, clothing and more. About 15 Boheme vendors participated in July’s Unblurred. Boheme owner Sarah Ponsoll said they’ll be occupying the donated storefront space on Penn during Unblurred at least through September.
Long-time Unblurred denizens include Sheila Ali, who opened the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, a gallery and educational center, in 2009. It’s arguably the busiest gallery on the corridor, with a new show every month, and live music at its opening receptions. Ali said Unblurred crowds lately feel a bit more conservative than in the old days, with “less people in wild outfits.” (She recalls one Unblurred-goer dressed as Abe Lincoln, and another as a tree.) But she enjoys the big turnouts, and adds, “We’re selling art, which is good.”
Nonetheless, the pandemic definitely changed some things. BOOM Concepts, whose storefront gallery had been a keystone of Unblurred since 2014, no longer opens its doors for the crawl; instead, it’s focusing on its own artist residencies and on supporting the Night Market.
BOOM co-founder Thomas Agnew said Unblurred crowds last year were small, which he attributes to the pandemic hiatus leaving people unsure it was still happening. He called the bounceback “amazing.”
“It has a momentum all its own,” says Rick Swartz, executive director of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., which helped launch the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative and oversees Unblurred. Swartz likes that Unblurred attracts young people to the neighborhood (though I’ll note that July’s event also drew plenty of visitors old enough to have experienced Unblurred when it was new).
The BGC — which owns a number of commercial and residential buildings along Penn — estimates that Unblurred draws from 1,000 to 1,500 visitors each month to the most active five blocks of the corridor. “It’s a great way to introduce people to Penn Avenue,” he said.
The next Unblurred is this Fri., Aug. 4. The venues are mostly between Mathilda and Negley, and they’re all open by 7 p.m.; peak traffic seems to arrive between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., though the street stays busy well after.
More information on Unblurred is here.
