Joan Kee is the rare combination of art historian and lawyer, and she’s shared her special skills in her new book, Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America.
Art Law
Posted inArt
How the GOP’s Tax Reform Could Hurt Art Institutions
Museums, nonprofits, private collections, and other art institutions may be significantly affected if the proposed plan succeeds in eliminating the estate tax.
Posted inArt
How Art and Law Can Work Together Beyond the Marketplace
On the one hand, the role of the art lawyer has been to lubricate the wheels of commerce. But this approach runs the risk of missing the most illuminating contributions to art law itself.
Posted inNews
US House of Representatives Passes Controversial Art Protection Bill
On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ensure that authorities cannot seize works of art brought into the United States for temporary display in cultural institutions — even if they’re determined to have been stolen.
Posted inArt
The Art of Art Lawsuits
What has really riveted the attention of the art world in the last few seasons is the law.
Posted inNews
NY Court Ruling Allows Auction Sellers to Remain Anonymous
The New York Court of Appeals has ruled in the case of Jenack v. Rabidazeh, reversing a lower court’s decision and allowing sellers of objects at auction to remain anonymous.
Posted inNews
5 Pointz Supporters Rally Against Impending Demolition
The future of 5 Pointz might now be measured in weeks. A federal court in Brooklyn ruled Tuesday against an injunction that would have stopped the demolition of the graffiti and street art center in Long Island City.
Posted inNews
Reverend Billy and His Choir Director Face Year in Prison for Bank Performance
For a performance in a Manhattan JP Morgan Chase bank, where they made an environmental statement dressed as extinct amphibians, Reverend Billy and the music director of his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, Neremiah Luckett, are facing a year in prison and $30,000 bail.
Posted inOpinion
Toledo Museum Justifiably Touchy About NY Times Holocaust Restitution Claim
The Toledo Museum of Art is unhappy with its representation in a Times piece about the increasing failure of American museums to restitute Nazi-looted art.
Posted inArt
Is Cariou v Prince Killing the Big T?
‘Transformative use’ is just mucking things up. That’s what I think. Providing a pivot for the Cariou v Prince case and the only real point of interest no matter what the pundits say, transformative use, instead of the fog-clearing test that it was supposed to be, has become the main particulate in a legal fog of war that has lasted three years now. Thus far, the dueling Cariou v Prince briefs have added new certainty to my theory that transformative use is a singularly unhelpful notion.
Posted inNews
Will Richard Prince Have to Destroy Rasta Photos?
The result of a lawsuit levied against Richard Prince’s “Canal Zone” series of photos has determined that the artist may be forced to destroy the works, as they violate copyright laws protecting the series of photographs appropriated by Prince, “Yes Rasta” by French photographer Patrick Cariou. In the end, what happens to Prince’s work is up to Cariou. The court case revolved around whether or not Prince’s alterations of the Cariou’s photos constituted total transformations of the originals, and thus protected under fair use laws. The answer handed down by the court was that Prince’s works didn’t count as fair use of the images — in a word, Prince’s works were too derivative.
Posted inArt
Is a Cease and Desist About Irony, Hypocrisy or Legal Strategy?
Jamie Alexander and Derek Song were surprised in late December of last year when they received a letter from the New York law firm of Jones Day, which represents Jeff Koons, LLC. Their San Francisco retail store and gallery, Park Life, had never attracted the attention of the art world’s big hitters before, but now, one Peter D. Vogl had sent them a cease-and-desist letter calling for the immediate cessation of their sale of balloon dog bookends. Apparently the 10.2” matte plastic pooches were threatening the Koons art empire and potentially confusing customers who are more accustomed to spending a lot more money on ten foot high hi-gloss steel versions of the same species.