Last month, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law provisions that strengthen New York’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Law, which requires galleries to separate proceeds for consignors from their own operating accounts. Now, if a dealer breaches fiduciary obligations to an artist, he or she can be convicted of a criminal misdemeanor, subject to fines and jail time. However, artists are allowed to waive these rights, which is somewhat of a rainfall on this parade. So, will these new provisions actually help artists?

Perhaps. As Artinfo’s article rightly points out, it won’t really help artists who lack bargaining power. We must keep in mind that the art world, as it currently stands, favors galleries and dealers. Those artists that opt to not waive their rights under the new law may be left out in the cold: without a show, without a gallery, and perhaps without sales.

Then again, those artists that truly believe in their work, and the labor and effort that it takes to produce art, may opt to not waive their rights and wait for the right gallery that best fits their expectations. Only time will tell. The law takes effect on November 6, 2012.

It’s been crazy around here, but here’s the scoop on the big art heist last weekend.

I just learned this morning that my mentor, friend, and artist Michael Asher passed away last night. It’s odd, as just last night I was reviewing Mike Kelley’s “Educational Complex Onwards” catalogue and thinking about the impact CalArts has had in my own practice. That’s for another day.

Today, I remember being a young kid from Texas, a recently admitted art student into CalArts’ MFA Art program in 1995. I remember, as many CalArtsians do, signing up to meet with every art school faculty on the roster. I had heard of this person, a Michael Asher, who people talked about but not many were ready to meet with. Being young, not knowing much, and wanting to test the waters, I signed up for a one-hour studio visit with Michael.

I remember that day. I pinned up approximately 4 or 5 wall pieces I was working on, all made of canvas and fastened to the wall with blue plastic grommets. After all, where does art go if not on a wall, right? I was ready to discuss, in detail, my thought process behind each piece  and the project as a whole. Michael walked in, I shook his hand, and I began pontificating on the meaning of my work. He stared at me, and after a moment of silence, I asked him what he thought. “Today, we are only going to talk about the grommets,” he said. Thus began my reconsidering the object of art. Little did I know then that when my law school contracts professor stated, “the devil is in the facts,” I would have already experienced that dictum in an art school.

My second recollection, of many, is one that many CalArtsians who participated in Michael’s post-studio class will recollect: the duration of his Friday class. Suffice it to say, that my critique, in his class, of an installation project I was exhibiting in gallery D300 at CalArts, began at 2pm that afternoon and ended near 2am. I was exhausted; Michael was not. This was not a rare event. Michael was prone to showing us films and having us read articles or chapters, in their entirety, during class. No material would go unexamined, no thought left unprobed, no stone unturned.

Michael Asher, viewing a Mark Lombardi drawing, at a group exhibition with my work at Rosamund Felsen gallery, curated by Charles Gaines (1999).

Michael is one reason that I attended law school. But he is more of a reason that I attended law school as an art project. Michael knew this. As he often did, he kidded about it. I spoke to Michael one day via phone, I believe during my 3L year (third year in law school), and we discussed the venerated law school socratic method. “It’s tiddly winks,” he said. “Nothing like your class,” I said. It was true. I divulged how during the day-long post-studio critiques at CalArts I often noted how the critique process was much like a court of law: the artist presenting was the defendant; the other students, the prosecutors, and Michael, the judge. But a judge as a judge should be; not stating his position, but rather inquiring and pressing the parties to think, to question, and to think again.

It is a sad day today, for we have lost another Michael, one of ours. But it is also a day of joy as I know that Michael lives in books, journals, images, and websites. But more so, Michael lives through so many a student and artist he impacted.

Today, we will only talk about Michael.

Speaking of political correctness (see my last post, Brandeis, What’s the Big Deal?), word just in that The Justice Department announced late last week that it would allow members of federally recognized Indian tribes to possess eagle feathers. However, don’t expect to see eagle feathers on e-Bay any time soon. According to The First Amendment Center, “the Justice Department will continue to prosecute tribe members and nonmembers alike for violating federal laws that prohibit killing eagles and other migratory birds or the buying or selling the feathers or other bird parts.”

So, don’t expect to see Rauschenberg’s Canyon on sale any time soon.

The NY Times ran a story the other day about a Palestinian artist’s exhibit at Brandeis University. The article heading is, Palestinian Artwork at Brandeis. I’m not kidding. Now, I don’t expect much from the Times‘ arts section anymore, but for some reason this made me pause a bit and wonder why this exhibition was worth a mention at all. The article is obviously not based on the art work’s merit. Based on the Times‘ description, the work seems, at best, to be a visual representation of an NPR story; at worst, a cliche of every first-year art student’s reading of post-colonial theory. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Well, I just read David Bernstein’s blog entry over at the Volokh Conspiracy and he pretty much hits the naked emperor on his head.

We know what we do now will attract lots of attention,” said Christopher Bedford, the new director of the [Rose art ] museum. “We want to capitalize on that attention.” Bedford, I’m guessing, contacted the Times (personally or through a P.R. rep.) to try to manufacture a controversy, and thus attention. The Times played along, but couldn’t find much to say, and was left to vaguely accuse pro-Israel students at Brandeis of not wanting to “engage” the Palestinian narrative. Pretty pathetic, if I’m right.

I think Bernstein’s right. What do you think?

New book.

Academic museums share a unique mandate: they are partners in education. As such, they have evolved in tandem – and not always easily – with their parent organizations. They can often pursue their missions in innovative ways, address controversial topics, produce unorthodox exhibitions, and have the freedom to experiment. But they operate within a challenging administrative structure – a two-tier environment in which operations, planning, governance, administration, financial support, and fundraising can all become more complex.

Donn Zaretsky, of the Art Law Blog, has a chapter on issues regarding donor intent in the Fisk-O’Keeffe litigation.

The last couple of weeks have seen an avalanche of articles concerning Ai Weiwei’s art projects and his ongoing fight against the Chinese government. The Chinese government’s insistence on lawbreaking and outlaw behavior on the part of Ai is nothing but a despotic veil covering the government’s true intent: the silencing, suppression, and censorship of artistic expression and dissent.

Reporting on Ai’s Hirshhorn retrospective, Roberta Smith’s recent NY Times article, The Message Over the Medium, concludes in a peculiar way.

Today we need all the great art and all the political agitation we can get. But it may be too much to expect that both will emanate with any frequency from the same person. By now, Mr. Ai’s art has helped carry him beyond art, where he is definitely somebody.

I wonder why Smith considers Ai’s “agitation” exclusive of an artistic practice? Perhaps it’s due to a worn out analysis which focuses the reading of art on a particular cultural lexicon and canon. Are Ai’s art works that quotidian and silent, specifically given the situation Weiwei currently faces? Are Ai’s crab installation not radically poetic?

Nonetheless, it is good to see that Ai’s plight is not forgotten. How can a global powerhouse expect to keep an artist silent given his major exhibitions and artistic-architectural projects, film,  fame,  and his relentless pursuit of free speech? In fact, Weiwei may be not only the strongest man in China, as described recently in the Wall Street Journal by the board members of CyberDissidents.org, themselves ex-political prisoners in Egypt, Iran, and Syria, but is perhaps also the most politically engaged artist worldwide.

A couple of weeks ago, Chinese officials said they were removing Ai’s business license because it had not met annual registration requirements. Ironically, Ai’s company has been unable to do so because police confiscated all its materials and its stamp when they detained Ai last year.

To call this absurd, impotent, and desperate attempt Kafkaesque is an understatement. Rather, it is reminiscent of men gathered around a board room table inspired by nothing other than to suppress the very same emotion and intellect they wish they could express. It is to attempt to murder a child’s need to call things as they truly are: unaffected and uncontaminated by cynicism, greed, power, and tyranny.

Nicholas Bequelin, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, speaking to The Guardian, seems to agree: “The authorities are dealing with Ai in the time-honoured tradition of making critics ‘wear small shoes’ as the Chinese expression has it: a never-ending series of petty bureaucratic harassment and administrative vexations designed to wear down its victim.”

It won’t work. It will never work.

If, in fact, Ai is the most politically engaged artist worldwide, aggravating both the so-called art world and Adorno’s “real” world, then I must disagree with Roberta Smith and propose that, rather than providing us with a singular notion of existence and art making, Ai in fact reminds us not only of the possibility of a “radical” alternative of and to existence, but to what art still has to offer. Terror may win the battle, but art will win the war.