The Art Law Blog: Copyright Law

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Copyright Law Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

The Art Law Blog

News and information about the laws that apply to the arts.
By Intellectual Property Law, Esq.

Post Frequency: 5.3/day

Last Entry: November 01, 2020 at 08:12:00

One further thought on the latest deaccessioning discourse

Posted on November 01, 2020
One talking point the deaccession police seem to have coalesced around recently is that, while they agree with the goals behind the Baltimore sale, the right way to achieve those goals is for the board members to pony up the cash, rather than by selling art...

"Two Museums Tried to Sell Art. Only One Caught Grief About it."

Posted on November 01, 2020
Hilarie Sheets in the New York Times on the different responses in the art world to the announced sales by the Brooklyn Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art: "If the disparate reactions to the two sales are a bit bewildering, welcome to the world of deaccessioning...

"In a shocking last-minute move, the Baltimore Museum of Art has 'decided to pause' its plans to sell three works from its collection with Sotheby?s .... The news was announced by the Maryland institution just two hours before two of the works were expected to hit the auction block in New York."

Posted on October 28, 2020
Breaking news here.

"A Billionaire Is Allegedly Blasting the ?Gilligan?s Island? Theme Song to Punish His Neighbor for Complaining About His Dale Chihuly Sculpture"

Posted on October 28, 2020
Your headline of the day.

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

"In defence of progressive deaccessioning"

Posted on October 26, 2020
Glenn Adamson makes the case in Apollo magazine.He addresses three arguments critics have made in recent days.The first is that "equity in collections is such a distant goal that there?s no point even trying to achieve it." His response:"[Christopher] Knight calculated that ?the Everson would need to unload half of its collection for it to reflect the diversity of a city that is 45% nonwhite...

More Baltimore

Posted on October 22, 2020
Hard to keep up with all the Baltimore commentary. I'll try to round a bunch of it up here and update as they come in.Christopher Knight: against it. (Brian Frye: not impressed.)Tyler Green. Lee Rosenbaum. Former Baltimore Museum director Arnold Lehman...

Full Circle

Posted on October 17, 2020
Thinking more about Mark Stryker's excellent tweet yesterday -- where he basically says in one sentence what I've been trying to say here for about 12 years -- and Everson board president Jessica Arb Danial's excellent piece, I'm reminded of the initial question I had about this whole issue, as quoted in Jori Finkel's New York Times piece all those years ago:"Donn Zaretsky, a New York lawyer who specializes in art cases, has sympathized with the National Academy at [The Art Law Blog], asking why a museum can sell art to buy more art but not to cover overhead costs or a much-needed education center...

"He would also withdraw the portion of his complaint that his rights were violated under the Visual Artists Rights Act."

Posted on October 17, 2020
An update on the toilet gardens lawsuit.

A Second Round of Deaccessioning at the Brooklyn Museum

Posted on October 16, 2020
This round includes works by Monet, Mir�, and Degas. Previous round here.These sales are completely ethical -- the AAMD, which as we all know has the power to say whether or not something is ethical, has decreed it so. Some people are unhappy anyway...

"While fine arts experts and critics may try to shame the Everson and other like-minded museums for the decision to deaccession for the purpose of creating an endowment to diversify the collection, these voices are echoing decades of status quo art history textbook and gallery etiquette, rather than the realities we are living today."

Posted on October 16, 2020
"To seek to impose one?s ideals of an art museum, without considering how significantly the world has changed these last few decades, let alone these past few months, is nothing short of tone-deaf. Every one of us, especially in the arts, should be acting...

Latest on the Baltimore Museum Deaccessioning

Posted on October 16, 2020
The LA Times: "A group of 23 prominent supporters of the Baltimore Museum of Art, including former trustees at the BMA and the nearby Walters Art Museum, has written to Maryland Atty. Gen. Brian Frosh and Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith to demand that they intervene to stop the impending sale of paintings from the storied museum?s collection...

"Museums are not mausoleums or treasure houses, they are living organisms, oriented to the present as well as the past, and that is where the fundamental disagreement lies."

Posted on October 13, 2020
Baltimore Museum curators Asma Naeem and Katy Siegel respond to critics of the museum's recently announced deaccession plan.

"Baltimore Museum to Sell 3 Blue-Chip Paintings to Advance Equity"

Posted on October 06, 2020
Still catching up on blogging, and last week's big story was the Baltimore Museum of Art putting three major paintings up for sale and planning to "use its $65 million windfall to help advance salary increases across the board, invest in diversity and inclusion programs, offer evening hours and eliminate admission fees for special exhibitions...

Cert. Denied in the 5Pointz Case (UPDATED)

Posted on October 05, 2020
Story here. Background here. Brian Frye tweets: "I think VARA is terrible policy & I think the underlying decision was wrong on both the merits & the remedy. But the defendant was defiantly unsympathetic, so..."UPDATE: New York Times story here.

"Today came news that the cutting-edge warehouse, opened by the real estate firm Carye Equities for a reported $40 million and managed by shipping industry experts, is shutting down for good."

Posted on September 20, 2020
ARCIS -- once described as "a tax-free zone in search of a tax" -- has closed down. Eileen Kinsella has the story here.

And speaking of Deaccessioning Hall of Fame Scholar-in-Residence Brian Frye ...

Posted on September 20, 2020
... an interesting conversation between him and another friend of the blog, artist/lawyer Alfred Steiner, at Brian's excellent Ipse Dixit podcast. Here's a good recent example of a Steiner project -- a Public License for Criminal Use.

The other big deaccessioning story ... (UPDATED)

Posted on September 20, 2020
... is that the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse is deaccessioning a Jackson Pollock -- estimated at $12-18 million -- and will use the proceeds to diversify its collection. The Baltimore Museum did something similar a couple years ago.I would have guessed that, because the sales proceeds are being used to buy more art (among other reasons), this would be non-controversial, but surprisingly (to me at least) it's been met with a good deal of criticism...

"It is the kind of sale that once would have engendered criticism, perhaps even sanctions .... But it is now completely within the parameters of loosened regulations ...."

Posted on September 20, 2020
I've been behind on my blogging the last few weeks, but the big news of course was the announcement by the Brooklyn Museum that it would be selling 12 works -- including paintings by Cranach, Courbet and Corot -- to raise funds for the care of its collection...

"Mr. Brand speculated that this painting was chosen precisely because it had been stolen before, and thieves assumed it 'must be important.'"

Posted on August 29, 2020
NYT: 17th-Century Dutch Painting Is Stolen. Again.

"According to a lawsuit filed in federal court Friday, Frederick 'Hank' Robar is requesting no less than $7 million in damages from the village as the infamous 15-year dispute over his 'toilet gardens' enters its likely most contentious chapter to date."

Posted on August 25, 2020
There's a headline for you. Story here.One of his claims is under VARA.

What Happens If Your Gallery Goes Belly Up?

Posted on August 25, 2020
Tom and Charles Danziger explain.

"The style we?re after is very much inspired by your work and that of other artists like Steven Paul Judd and Frank Hyde"

Posted on August 17, 2020
The Art Newspaper: Redbone music video sparks artist dispute over copyright infringement.Another example having to do with the scope of protection for an artist's style (as opposed to a specific work).

"All buyers must also sign a contract with extensive conditions. They must agree not to resell the work at auction for at least five years; if they do want to sell, they must give the artist right of first refusal; and, if they sell to someone else, they have to give 15 percent of the upside back to the artists."

Posted on August 15, 2020
A contractual resale royalty is in place for "'Say It Loud (I?m Black and Proud),' an online selling exhibition at Christie?s that opened on July 31 and is dedicated to the promotion of Black art."Arlene D�vila tweets: "Great example of how curators can advocate for artists' resale royalty rights...

"The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is suing the architects who planned its warehouse expansion five years ago, alleging they failed to design a structure that would prevent condensation from occurring inside that could damage artwork and other precious items."

Posted on August 12, 2020
Buffalo News story here.

"A Brooklyn Art-Storage Company Is Suing Art Dealer Fergus McCaffrey for Allegedly Failing to Pay His $145,000 Bill"

Posted on August 11, 2020
artnet news story here.

"Staten Island artist Scott LoBaido has a lawyer and is ready to take on the de Blasio administration in court if the Department of Transportation continues to pressure him to remove his thin blue line outside of the 122 precinct."

Posted on August 11, 2020
The artist says he "painted the blue line as a way to stand in solidarity with the NYPD after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he would paint 'Black Lives Matter? street murals across the five boroughs on the heels of nationwide racial injustice protests...

"In a statement to the Daily News, he said: 'It may be left over from my divorce, but I don?t have such a bill.'"

Posted on August 11, 2020
"Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and attorney to Donald Trump, has been hit with a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court by an art advisor who says he failed to pay for her appraisal services, which he received during his contentious divorce from Judith Nathan in 2019...