Apparently the recession has even hit Spongebob, or at least his designer. Actually the whole story is pretty weird. One side is that White (designer/artist for spongebob) hired some "goons" his attorney, and his studio manager to go threaten and hold hostage the owner of the gallery that sells his work while they stole much of it to sell themselves. White's side of the story is that they uncovered that the gallery had forged copies and signatures of his work, selling them as originals, and had the men go to the gallery to discuss a resolution to the "widespread fraud" after setting up the meeting with the accuser. I don't really know who's right here, but if White really hired these guys to hold the gallery owner hostage, why in the hell would he have his studio manager or attorney go? isn't the point of robbing someone to NOT get caught? For them NOT to be able to recognize you?
The lawyer of the owner rebuked saying that if they uncovered the fraud, why not go to the police? but then again, as an artist, releasing the information that there are frauds in the market can be very damaging to your name and prices...Plus, White did say they were there to discuss an exchange in which he would drop the infringement claims against the gallery. AAAANNND he said he had contacted the hotel (where the gallery is located) told them about teh forgeries, and that Howell had even recorded a confession.
So the story is either an old lady got caught in a big fraud scheme and is sour that the artist actually found out and acted, or the spongebob designer went to some pretty extreme lengths to get his own art back to sell. I'm not sure which I like better.
Story below:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Gallerist-sues-“SpongeBob”-artist-over-alleged-heist/24413
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