A judge has ruled against residents suing the city of Cambridge, MA and Lesley University over plans to relocate the Art Institute of Boston to the site of a historic church in Porter Square. The suit asked the court to overturn new zoning laws that enable Lesley University to move the church to the south side of its Massachusetts Avenue property to make way for a new four-story building for the institute.

Via The Boston Globe.

Last night, I had the distinct pleasure of participating on a panel concerning the legal and policy perspectives on street art. Organized by NYU’s School of Law and their Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law Society (IPELS), the panel consisted of myself and six other prominent individuals, including criminal defense and civil rights lawyer Ron Kuby; Wooster Collective founder and artist Sara Schiller; IP litigator and Sheppard Mullin partner, Ted Max; Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney, John O’Mara; Los Angeles based street artist, X; and moderator and NYU Law Professor, Amy Adler.

The two-hour panel was lively and of course a bit controversial. What are the criminal consequences of tagging, stenciling, spray painting and graffiti? Should “street art” even be considered art or simply another form of cultural production? How are copyright and trademark leveraged to protect or exploit street art? Should street art be covered and protected by the Visual Artists Rights Act? With the increasing number of street artists being represented by art galleries and museum exhibitions, has street art been institutionalized? What is the relationship between street art and gang affiliations, and how do we tell them apart? How do we deal with the racial and class issues inherent in much street art and graffiti, and do criminal sanctions turn on these social issues?

Amy Adler noticed a conceptual thread running through all of the panelists’ presentations, and posed a particularly poignant question that goes to the heart of Clancco: how does law affect the production of culture? With this in mind, the panelists and audience were asked to ponder whether or not we want law to function as a medium.

A good panel always leaves many unanswered questions but plenty of viable options. This was one of them. My sincere thanks to NYU Law, IPELS, and of course Jenna Bass Levy and Megan Chang for the invitation.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has filed a lawsuit against ten graffiti artists associated with the MTA tagging crew, charging them with violating California’s unfair competition laws because they’re selling art works on the strength of their outlaw names and reputations. “They’ve obtained an unfair advantage because they gained fame and notoriety through criminal acts,” said Anne Tremblay, assistant city attorney. “This is unlawful competition.”

Via The Huff Post. I’m on a panel today on the legal and policy issues surrounding street art, so quite timely indeed.

If you’ve been following the Cariou v. Prince copyright case, you won’t want to miss this. I’ll be in conversation with Cariou’s attorney, Dan Brooks, discussing the case and possible ramifications. Q&A after.

When: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 6-8pm

Where: Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Auditorium, 1 East 53rd Street, NY, NY 10022 (corner with 5th Avenue)

On March 18, 2011, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment for plaintiff, artist Patrick Cariou, ruling that artist Richard Prince, in conjunction with the Gagosian Gallery, infringed Cariou’s copyrighted works. Dan Brooks successfully represented artist Patrick Cariou in Cariou’s copyright infringement lawsuit against artist Richard Prince. Mr. Brooks will be speaking about the case as well as issues raised by the decision. A Q&A session will follow Mr. Brooks’ presentation.

This talk will be moderated by VLA’s Associate Director, Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento.

Mr. Brooks is a partner with Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP. He is currently the Chair of the Securities Litigation Practice Group.  He concentrates his practice in complex commercial, corporate, and securities and commodities litigation and arbitration. He has engaged in complex commercial business litigation in state and federal courts nationwide, as well as in numerous alternative dispute resolution forums in the U.S. and abroad. He has substantial expertise in defending broker-dealers in customer and employment disputes. He has also defended other corporate clients in employment-related matters, including disputes over bonus and severance packages and sexual harassment complaints. Mr. Brooks received his J.D. from Yale Law School, and his B.A. from Columbia University.

Fees: (seating is limited)
Artists, Arts Administrators, Students: $35
Legal Professional VLA Member: $125
Legal Professional Non-Member: $150

CLE: Two CLE credits available for admitted attorneys: 1 professional practice, 1 skills

All proceeds will benefit VLA’s Art & Law Residency Program.

For more information, please e-mail Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento at: ssarmiento@vlany.org

To register, please complete this registration form. All registration fees are non-refundable. For more information, please call Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento at 212.319.2787 x 13

Artists and a few others filed a lawsuit in federal court over Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s decision to remove a mural and relocate it tot a more suitable place. The lawsuit seeks to confirm the mural’s current location, ensure that it’s adequately preserved, and ultimately to restore it to the Labor Department building in Augusta.

Via Bloomberg Businessweek.

For this project, I bring together a group of practicing lawyers and legal scholars and through the medium of drawing, teach them how to draw and thus release their creative potential. A location willing to host this performance/event is approached, and thus houses this one day project. This project is recurring. -sms

*****

Lawyers spend too much time using the left-side of their brain and hardly tap into their creative right-side. With this in mind, I’ve decided to create a drawing class strictly for lawyers. Whether you’re a novice or experienced draftsperson, I encourage you to put down that summary judgment brief and pick up a drawing pad and pencil and let that artist out.

No CLE credit, no statutes (although perhaps a statue or two), and no partners breathing down your back. Just you and a group of like-minded attorneys interested in expressing themselves through drawing and two artists hanging out with you teaching you how to “see” and draw. This will be an ongoing series, and depending on interest and energy we may meet in different locations around the city, both indoors and outdoors.

This class will be led by Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento and Luis Nieto Dickens.

When:  Saturday, May 14, 2011
Where:  Paley Park (next to 1 East 53rd Street. Look for the waterfall)
Time:  11am – 2pm (but you can leave when you want)
Fee:  Free

To sign-up for this free class, please rsvp to sergio_sarmiento@clancco.com. Please include name, law firm affiliation, e-mail address, and years in professional practice. This class is limited to 15 attorneys, so please notify me if you will not be able to attend.

For more information, or if you have questions, please contact Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento at sergio_sarmiento@clancco.com.

Required Materials:

1. 11 x 14 drawing pad, 50 sheets, 70 lb. paper (approx $7)
2. 1 Eraser, Staedtler (approx $1)
3. 2- 2B pencil (what you have in law firm conference rooms) (free)
4. 2-Black ink pen (Pilot, Uni-Ball) (approx $1)

All of these materials can be purchased at any art store, such as Pearl Art & Craft; Blick Art Materials; and Ultrecht Art Supply.

This free class is part of Clancco.com’s Art School for Lawyers™ series.

Richard Prince Untitled (cowboy), 1989 Ektacolor photograph 127 x 178 cm © 2008 Richard Prince

The recent Cariou v. Prince copyright ruling has produced pandemonium and copious amounts of opinions and commentary. It’s disappointing to not be able to find an interesting thought that presents a unique perspective. Most thoughts regarding this case are purely emotive and without a scintilla of reason.

Today was refreshing.

Eric Felten, of the WSJ, today takes Prince and artists who use similar strategies to task.

There will be artists and critics who decry the chilling effect this will have on galleries’ willingness to sell appropriation art. But a liability-shy gimlet eye might ultimately be good for artists: Having to prove to the galleries that their work is truly transformative and not just a copy means the appropriators will have to strive to be demonstrably creative. Artists who believe that anything they do is, by definition, an act of genius are on the road to creative complacency. Might too much artistic freedom—such as an unlimited freedom to steal others’ work—breed lazy and insipid work?

This is great. In fact — and quite self-serving — I said the same thing last year on this blog, in an entry titled, Are We Really Headed Toward Permission-Based Artmaking? In that article, I write about the perceived threat to contemporary art and creativity by licensing systems and structures.

This perceived threat is guised as encompassing (and coming into being as) permission-based and license-based structures which artists would have to abide by in order to produce art works and other creative projects. This fear would be true only if artists continue to give up on the challenges posed by creativity and gave in to facile and lazy intellectual hyperbole. Why then is this threat being promulgated, and by whom? … The spectral fear of this sanctioning system of artistic production comes from an ignorance of two factors necessary to the valuation of art and artists. Those two factors are creativity and originality. Creativity has become synonymous with appropriation, while art has surprisingly bought into the academic belief in the death of originality.

Echoing Felten’s and my thoughts, Patrick Cariou agrees. When asked by the Huffington Post if he thought the recent fair use ruling would have “any negative effects on artists,” Cariou correctly responded:

It’s going to educate them. I don’t think it’s going to harm anyone. I don’t think artists should be offered a different standard from anyone else. When you’re 12 years old your parents tell you “Don’t steal the candy,” and we all try to apply that rule, and if you don’t people sometimes end up in jail. I’m interested in Warhol’s use of the Campbell soup can and Rauschenberg using readymade things — that I’m okay with. If it’s to steal photographs or paintings to create something, you shouldn’t be an artist in the first place. To me Richard Prince is more of an art director than an artist. I think he’s a good art director, and a great thief.

Cariou and Felten are right. Whether or not artists, galleries, critics, and curators learn from this decision and use it to leverage a more critically-based art world is another matter. One certainly hopes they do.