perizie@marcozaia.net
With the approval of law n.124 of 04/08/2017 “on the market and on competition”, two important amendments were introduced to the Cultural Heritage Code of 2004. The first has the function of increasing the limit on the free export and sale of works by authors who are no longer living from 50 to 70 years. The second to allow, with the presentation of a self-certification to the competent Superintendence, the free circulation of works and art objects whose value does not exceed 13,500 euros. The text of these amendments is the result of a long discussion between the promoters of the Apollo project, i.e. the commercial operators in the art world who asked for the liberalization of the market, and numerous exponents of the main political forces, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, as well as the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBACT). Since the implementing decrees have not been passed, in fact the Cultural Heritage Code is partly inoperative and therefore the Superintendencies are forced to apply the old rule while the market continues to do its business in a climate of uncertainty which allows ample space for illicit activities, both common and organized crime.
The advent of the global and digitalized world provides new opportunities for cooperation between nations with a view to applying the “United Nations Convention against Organized Crime”. This charter, fundamental in combating criminal activities, would be strongly supported by the already planned creation of online registers of art galleries and antique dealers, especially if it can also be consulted by foreign authorities. On the one hand, these registers would risk depressing the market but on the other they would allow a cataloging of objects and the verification of fluctuations in values which have often hidden speculations or payment instruments for illicit counterparts. These are easily achievable manipulations, especially in the case of contemporary art, which has often been used as a form of payment in drug trafficking, corruption or extortion.
In a reality full of art and culture like the Italian one in which it is impossible, and often senseless, to think of minutely controlling the movements of the art market, an excellent regulatory text is followed by an objective difficulty of application exacerbated by a regulation of activities that is effectively non-existent: anyone can be a second-hand dealer, antique dealer or gallery owner regardless of their skills, their skills and their criminal record. The result is paradoxes such as second-hand dealers who handle highly antique works, antique dealers who participate in flea markets and individuals convicted of receiving stolen goods or forgery of works of art who manage thriving businesses.
The promulgation of the new Title VIII-bis of the Penal Code “of crimes against cultural heritage” introduces aggravating circumstances in the event that the crime of illicit exit or export of cultural goods is committed by “those who carry out activities of sale to the public or display of cultural objects for the purpose of trade” by banning them from the profession or art they practise. Together with the confiscation of property and assets, this is the most concrete instrument of contrast.