Marlon Bishop, of WNYC, interviewed me yesterday for a story on deaccessioning. The radio version came out yesterday, but you can read Bishop’s article, Art Deaccessioning: Right or Wrong?, on WNYC’s website, as well as hear a few soundbites from me; Kaywin Feldman, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and director of the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts; and anti-deaccessionist, Lee Rosenbaum.

I’m travelling at the moment for a talk on artist consignment agreements and fiscal sponsorships, but will elaborate more on deaccessioning here and on my other blog, The Deaccessioning Blog, soon. What do you think? Deaccession or not? Is there a middle ground?

Come hear VLA Art & Law seminar leader Sonia Katyal talk about disobedience and social change.

Do squatters, pirates, and protesters improve the law? Professor Sonia Katyal, of Fordham Law School, says that they do in her new book, Property Outlaws (Yale University Press, 2010). She and coauthor Eduardo Peñalver, a professor at Cornell Law, contend in the case of both tangible and intellectual property law, particularly copyright law, some forms of disobedience can often lead to an improvement in legal regulation.  An important conclusion of the book is that a dynamic between the activities of “property outlaws” and legal innovation should be cultivated in order to maintain this avenue of legal reform.

Where: Eyebeam, 540 W 21st St. New York, NY 10011

When: Oct 28, 2010, 6:30PM-8:30PM

How much: $10 donation (at the door)

If so, Entrepreneur magazine has just published a very good and concise article on the legal requirements necessary to start a nonprofit tax-exempt organization. Although brief, the article seems to mention the necessary filings and procedures necessary to launch a nonprofit corporation. Keep in mind that unlike for-profit businesses, nonprofit tax-exempt organizations are not owned by anyone and, furthermore, the founder, if on the board of directors, can certainly be voted off the board. The nonprofit must also have a public purpose.

I teach a course on how to start your a nonprofit tax-exempt corporation in New York State, once a month, over at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Check this link for dates, times, and fees.

Anyhow,  here’s a snippet from Entrepreneur:

Unlike a for-profit business, a nonprofit may be eligible for certain benefits, such as sales, property and income tax exemptions at the state level. … Another major difference between a profit and nonprofit business deals with the treatment of the profits. With a for-profit business, the owners and shareholders generally receive the profits. With a nonprofit, any money that is left after the organization has paid its bills is put back into the organization. Some types of nonprofits can receive contributions that are tax deductible to the individual who contributes to the organization.

LMCC has just released a two-sided poster I designed for their LentSpace Late Edition project, What is Pan-Americanism? Here’s a description of the Late Edition project:

Punning “late editions,” when newspapers used to release evening editions of breaking news, with “late addition,” as in an afterthought or correction, this print-media series aims to put the current exhibition and its subject up for review by artists. Instead of following the conventions of newspaper publishing, these responses take the form of a new artwork “edition” that will serve as a compliment, retort, or possibly, as a humorous non-sequitur.

Once formatted, these prints are nested into LentSpace’s own program guide as inserts and distributed on-site in newspaper distribution boxes for free, while supplies last. By appropriating the newspaper distribution boxes in LentSpace as a gallery in-itself, each edition will become both part of the larger exhibition, yet will also serve as a take-home gift — often found by surprise — for any visitor.

Keeping in mind that these works will be publicly circulated, hoarding or other “appropriations” beyond the typically intended reception of the art object, such as using these papers as material for packing glass, are to be expected and also encouraged. In order to center this current set on the same themes of the Avenue of the Americas exhibition and to create a small volume of thematically joined works, each of the participating artists were posed a simple yet provocative charge, namely: What is Pan-Americanism?

The LentSpace program was curated by Adam Kleinman and Deborah Sprzeuzkouski, and included three other Late Editions by Wilfredo Prieto, Sebastian Errazuriz, and Erick Beltran. You can get your copy at Lent Space in Manhattan. If you can’t make it and would like one, e-mail me your name and address at sergio_sarmiento@clancco.com and I will get one out to you.

Seems like everyone is capitalizing on the sexiness of copyright these days (or at least anyone can get away with it). The “university of record” has just published a book on the pros of copying and plagiarizing, by an English professor no less.

Marcus Boon’s, In Praise of Copying, supports the idea “that copying is an essential part of being human, that the ability to copy is worthy of celebration, and that, without recognizing how integral copying is to being human, we cannot understand ourselves or the world we live in.”

Boon told the Toronto Sun that, “once you start to think about [copying] that way, it becomes less about intellectual property and more about just understanding who we are[.]”

Is that really who we want to be? I mean, there are people who think of nothing but dealing narcotics, committing larcenies and engaging in heinous crimes, but still…

And then Boon gives us this gem:

“It’s true there are cases where the rules are very clear that stealing from your neighbour’s exam kind of destroys the point of the exam, but on the other hand, maybe we should have exams that emphasize skillful copying[.]”

The rules are very clear? Great. So we’re back to morality and rules, but only to those dictated by and to the liking of “free culturists.” Boon’s example? You can download his book for free, yet he and Harvard University Press would be quite upset if one just photocopied their book and sold it on the streets of Manhattan for a buck 95! (Don’t try this at home kids!) How do we know? Boon himself tells us this:

[the free pdf] does come with a creative commons license that sets some intelligent restrictions on what you can do with it. Although generosity is a wonderful thing, this isn’t especially intended as a utopian gesture towards a world in which everything is free.

Huh? Intelligent restrictions? Is there anyone at answering the phone at Harvard, or are they all at the White House? You can read the rest of Boon’s drivel on intelligence, utopia, and reiterations here. Or, you can read one reader’s comment on Boon’s book:

And this, ladies and gents, is a perfect example of why so many young adults graduate from university while remaining completely clueless and unable to think for themselves.

What a boon!

Full disclosure: I am currently listening to Def Leppard’s, Action Not Words, from their Pyromania album.

Paris City Hall has come under fire for barring minors from the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris exhibit, Kiss the Past Hello, by U.S. photographer Larry Clark, a show that includes sexually explicit shots of teenagers. The mayor’s office has expressed fears about legal challenges if it lets minors into the exhibit. Artists and historians well know that Clark is also the filmmaker of the 1995 film Kids.

According to the Globe and Mail, France has a “law [which] forbids showing pornographic images to minors under 18 and is punishable with up to 3 years in prison and a fine of $104,760.”

Clark called the move “ridiculous” in an interview published Thursday. “I see this as an attack on youth, on teenagers,” he was quoted as telling Liberation newspaper. “These photos are for them.”

Libération has more on this story (in French).