Strategic Risk Advisory for the Art World
The ArtRisk Group is a strategic risk advisory firm dedicated to the worlds of art, antiquities, cultural property, and high-value collectibles.
Our principals bring decades of experience across the private and public sectors, including the art market, law enforcement, legal and regulatory matters, provenance, investigations, compliance, and risk management.
As long-time, trusted colleagues, we bring these perspectives together to provide clients with a distinct 360-degree view of risk. We help clients identify potential problems, understand their exposure, make informed decisions, and determine the appropriate path forward when complex issues arise.
ArtRisk advises on matters involving transactions, provenance and ownership, fraud and theft, regulatory compliance, disputes, financing, and the physical and digital protection of collections and other valuable assets. Where matters call for specialized investigative, security, technical, legal, or other capabilities, we leverage standing relationships with experienced professionals and resources appropriate to the circumstances.
Who We Serve
Individual & Corporate Collectors
Artists & Foundations
Auction Houses & Art Fairs
Asset-Backed Lenders & Borrowers
Museums & Cultural Institutions
Dealers, Advisors & Galleries
Insurance Carriers & Brokers
Law Firms & Parties to Mediation
How We Work
The art market presents risks unlike those encountered in many other industries. Questions involving ownership, provenance, authenticity, counterparties, regulation, security, financing, and reputation can overlap within a single transaction or collection.
ArtRisk helps clients understand these risks before decisions are made and navigate them when issues emerge.
Our role begins with the issue at hand. We assess the circumstances, identify areas requiring closer attention, help define the questions that need to be answered, and provide strategic guidance informed by decades of experience with complex matters involving art and other high-value assets.
When additional fact development, investigative work, technical assessment, security expertise, or other specialized capabilities are warranted, we advise clients on the appropriate scope and approach and leverage standing relationships with qualified professionals as appropriate.
Throughout, ArtRisk remains focused on the larger question: understanding what the available information means for the client and advising on what should happen next.
Our work spans:
- Collectors and entities as buyers, sellers, heirs, donors, and recipients
- Dealerships, gallerists, and auctioneers
- Advisors, appraisers, and other intermediaries
- Fine art
- Antiquities, ancient artifacts, and cultural property
- Collectibles, jewelry, watches, and other valuable items
- Private sales and consignments
- Art-backed financing
- Donations and gifts
Practice Areas
Provenance & Ownership Advisory
Questions about provenance, ownership, authenticity, documentation, and the history of an object can materially affect the value, transferability, and integrity of art, cultural property, and other collectibles.
Provenance is a core capability of The ArtRisk Group. We help collectors, institutions, market participants, lenders, insurers, and counsel understand an object’s history, identify gaps or issues warranting closer attention, evaluate provenance information, and assess the implications for a proposed transaction, existing collection, dispute, loan, donation, or other matter.
Our multidisciplinary perspective combines deep provenance expertise with experience involving art crime, legal and regulatory matters, disputes, financial crime, and the art market. This enables us not simply to consider what an object’s history shows, but to advise clients on what that history may mean.
Where a matter requires investigative work, scientific analysis, legal analysis, or other specialized outside expertise, ArtRisk can advise on the appropriate approach and leverage standing relationships with relevant specialists.
Fraud, Theft & Recovery Advisory
Suspected theft, fraud, misappropriation, or misconduct involving art can quickly raise legal, financial, reputational, and practical concerns.
ArtRisk advises collectors, institutions, insurers, law firms, and other market participants confronting these situations. Drawing on our principals’ extensive experience with art crime, fraud, asset recovery, insurance matters, and complex investigations, we help clients assess the circumstances, identify critical questions, understand potential exposure, and develop a strategy for moving forward.
Where investigative or recovery work is appropriate, ArtRisk advises on the objectives, scope, and potential avenues available and can leverage standing relationships with experienced investigative, legal, recovery, and other specialists.
Throughout a matter, we help clients understand the significance of what is known, evaluate developments as they emerge, and make informed decisions about what should happen next.
Litigation & Dispute Advisory
Art-related disputes frequently involve an unusual combination of legal, commercial, historical, reputational, and factual issues.
ArtRisk provides strategic advice to clients and counsel confronting matters involving consignment, authenticity, title and ownership, provenance, financing, fraud, theft, and other disputes involving art and cultural heritage.
We help clients and their legal teams understand the factual landscape, identify questions requiring further development, assess the significance of information and developments, and formulate practical strategies informed by deep experience with art-market disputes.
Where investigative, expert, research, or other specialized support would be useful, ArtRisk can advise on the appropriate scope and resources and leverage standing relationships with relevant professionals.
As a certified mediator, ArtRisk co-founder Jordan Arnold also offers parties an opportunity to pursue resolution outside of court.
Transaction Risk Advisory
Transactions involving art and other valuable assets can present risks extending well beyond the object itself. Ownership, provenance, counterparties, intermediaries, financing, documentation, sanctions, regulatory considerations, and reputation may all affect whether and how a transaction should proceed.
ArtRisk advises buyers, sellers, lenders, borrowers, dealers, advisors, institutions, and other market participants on identifying and evaluating these risks.
We help clients define the appropriate risk questions, assess information available to them, identify areas warranting further inquiry, and understand the significance of issues that emerge.
Where additional fact development or specialized review is appropriate, we help define the scope and leverage standing relationships with qualified resources. ArtRisk then helps the client evaluate the resulting information in the context of the transaction and the decisions at hand.
Regulatory & Compliance Advisory
The regulatory environment surrounding art and cultural property continues to evolve. Anti-money laundering requirements, sanctions, beneficial ownership rules, Know Your Client expectations, and other legal and regulatory considerations increasingly affect art-market participants.
ArtRisk provides strategic compliance advice informed by direct experience developing, implementing, and evaluating compliance programs and industry best practices.
We help clients understand their exposure, establish risk-based frameworks, strengthen internal decision-making, and determine when specialized legal or compliance resources should be engaged.
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A meaningful risk assessment helps clients understand where regulatory and compliance vulnerabilities may exist and where controls should be strengthened.
ArtRisk advises clients on evaluating their operations through a risk-based lens, prioritizing material issues, and developing practical strategies for addressing identified concerns.
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Effective compliance programs should be practical, proportionate, and integrated into everyday operations.
ArtRisk advises clients on the development and strengthening of policies, protocols, controls, and decision-making frameworks designed to support compliance while reflecting how their businesses and organizations actually operate.
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People responsible for transactions, collections, operations, and client relationships need to recognize potential issues and know when additional guidance is warranted.
ArtRisk provides focused compliance education designed around the circumstances and risk profile of the client, giving relevant personnel practical information and tools they can apply in their everyday work.
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Not every art-market participant requires or can justify a full-time compliance function.
ArtRisk provides clients with access to senior-level compliance advice tailored to their activities, resources, and risk profile. We help clients evaluate compliance needs, establish appropriate frameworks, address emerging questions, and determine when additional legal or specialized expertise should be engaged.
Cyber & Information Risk Advisory
Art-market participants increasingly hold valuable financial, personal, transactional, and collection information in digital environments. Email compromise, payment fraud, data breaches, ransomware, account takeover, and other cyber threats can therefore create substantial financial and reputational exposure.
ArtRisk advises clients on understanding these risks in the context of their operations, collections, transactions, and relationships.
We help clients identify areas of potential exposure, establish priorities, consider appropriate safeguards, and determine when specialized technical expertise is warranted.
Where technical assessment, testing, remediation, or incident response is required, ArtRisk can leverage standing relationships with qualified specialists while helping the client understand the broader risk and the implications of identified issues.
Art Financing Advisory
Art-backed lending presents interconnected risks involving the borrower, lender, collateral, ownership, valuation, documentation, security interests, and potential enforcement.
ArtRisk advises participants in art-financing transactions on understanding these risks before and during a transaction and when difficulties arise.
Drawing on experience involving art transactions, fraud, lending, disputes, and recoveries, we help clients identify the questions that matter, evaluate information developed in connection with a transaction, recognize areas requiring additional attention, and understand potential exposure.
Where additional fact development, investigative work, valuation expertise, legal analysis, or other specialized capabilities are warranted, ArtRisk advises on the appropriate scope and can leverage standing relationships with qualified professionals.
Physical Security & Collection Protection Advisory
Protecting art and other valuable assets requires more than security equipment. Effective protection considers the people, places, procedures, movement, storage, and circumstances surrounding a collection.
Drawing on our principals’ extensive experience involving law enforcement, art crime, risk management, and collection-related matters, ArtRisk advises individual collectors, galleries, museums, foundations, and other clients on physical security and collection-protection risk.
We help clients identify areas of potential exposure, establish priorities, consider appropriate protective measures, and determine when specialized security expertise is warranted.
Where security assessments, system design or implementation, protective services, or other specialized security work is required, ArtRisk can leverage standing relationships with experienced professionals while advising the client on its overall risk profile, priorities, and appropriate course of action.
Who We Are
The ArtRisk Group brings together four principals whose careers span the art market, law enforcement, prosecution, provenance, compliance, investigations, dispute resolution, and risk consulting.
Jane Levine, Jim Wynne, Jordan Arnold, and Victoria Sears Goldman have worked together and alongside one another on complex art-related matters for years. That collective experience gives ArtRisk clients access to perspectives rarely found within a single advisory firm.
Our principals’ investigative and law-enforcement backgrounds are an important part of that perspective. They inform how we recognize risk, identify the questions that matter, evaluate information, and advise clients confronting difficult circumstances.
Our value lies in understanding how different areas of risk intersect, helping clients access the right capabilities when necessary, and providing experienced judgment about what the available information means and what should happen next.
Jane Levine
Jim Wynne
Jordan Arnold
Victoria Sears Goldman
Get in touch
The ArtRisk Group helps clients understand risk, make informed decisions, and protect their investments, collections, and treasured assets.