The University of the South, which owns the intellectual property rights for [Tennessee] Williams’s “Streetcar Named Desire,” has threatened legal action to stop performances of the one-man show “Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire,” which is scheduled to run through March 15 at SoHo Playhouse.

“I don’t think Tennessee Williams would approve of anything they’re doing in the name of protecting his work, not one bit,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “He was one starving artist, and I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt other starving artists.”

More from today’s NY Times.

Unlike Karen WIlkin’s emotional article in today’s WSJ, Daniel Grant provides Brandeis fans with another clear, concise, and neutral outline of the Rose Art Museum fiasco (two if you count “When Going Gets Tough” on the same page). He brings a fresh take on pro and contra positions to the closing and selling, as well as the legal issues with “donor intent.” He also gives lengthy attention to the selling and buying of art and stocks during this time, as well as the tax consequences that could arise for donors. Lastly, he also covers why Brandeis would be better off by selling via auction rather than private sales. Rose Art Museum lovers looking for irrational and emotional “reasons” need not read this article; you won’t find it.

An example of why Brandeis is doing the right thing:

University of Chicago economist David Galenson…speculated, however, that university trustees may have seen their principal donors tapped out from the last fund-raising campaign and that Brandeis was not in a strong position to borrow funds from banks. “If other options are closed off, it’s not an unreasonable position to say that this is an educational institution in financial trouble and that art is an asset like any other, so why not sell it.”

True. We don’t know what financial disasters await Brandeis, and we certainly are not in the position to cry over sold artwork when, and as others have pointed out in the last week, a university’s mission should be narrowly tailored to academics, professional training, and education. Many will argue that access to art is part of this education, but no one said that a university had to supply what is already present outside a university context.

Additionally, Daniel Grant has another brief article on the dreaded “prissy fatwa,” deaccessioning, as well as news that The National Academy may have more artworks on the chopping block.

Art isn’t a lost cause at Brandeis. The university plans to reopen the Rose Art building as an arts center, focusing on student and faculty exhibitions, with studio space for making art and gallery space for imported shows. “We want to be sure we have art on the campus even if we don’t have art,” said Marty Wyngaarden Krauss, the school’s provost.

Enjoy!

Two famed early works by Pablo Picasso will stay at the Guggenheim Museum and MoMA after both institutions reached an out-of-court settlement over a lawsuit alleging the previous owner was forced by the Nazis to sell his artworks in the 1930s.

In a joint statement announcing the settlement, the museums said the continued ownership of the masterpieces “ensures that members of the public _ including millions of visitors, students, scholars, and others _ will continue to enjoy them for generations to come.”

More from The Boston Globe and The Washington Post.

What happens when custom agents declare that a sculpture piece or an art installation is not art, but rather either a conglomeration of individual hardware parts or lacking in three dimensionality?

The major problem for commercial galleries when importing contemporary art works into the UK is that there is currently no general custom category for art works under EU custom law. While there is a general custom chapter headed ‘works of art, collectors’ pieces and antiques’, known as Chapter 97, in order to fall within this the imported art work must fit within a certain sub-category: ‘painting’, ‘print’ or ‘sculpture’. The absence of a residual category for artistic works (similarly to the absence of such a category under UK copyright law’s definition of ‘artistic works’) within this traditional classificatory structure presents potential difficulties for contemporary work such as conceptual art and installations.

To find out how the VAT and Duties Tribunal (London) held regarding several video installations by Bill Viola and a light piece by Dan Flavin, read Frieze Magazine’s interesting article regarding this specific issue.

It’s hard to find a newspaper article today that speaks not only lucidly about art and law, but that is also correct and neutral in its interpretation of its subject matter. Today’s Wall Street Journal has just such a treat. Daniel Grant gives a somewhat brief overview of the current lawsuit brought by photographer Patrick Cariou against Richard Prince for copyright infringement. Grant’s article does a nice job of comparing this lawsuit to two previous copyright lawsuits against Jeff Koons (Rogers and Blanch). Grant points to what seems to be the crucial issue in the recent Prince lawsuit: where do the derivative vs. transformative areas clearly divide? More on point is the fact that this crucial distinction will be an issue for the “average person” to decide. Regardless, with the art world gluttony and and a negative public perception of individuals capitalizing on other people’s assets, Grant may be right that although the tide shifted in favor of visual artists, that same tide may now be shifting back. Quoting the legal adviser to the U.S. Copyright Office, grant concludes: “”There is more sympathy in the legal environment — maybe it has gone too far[.]”

It seems that in difficult financial times people not only protect their intellectual propety assets to their full extent, but also litigate to collect any monies lost due to illegal infringement.

57 years after being bought direct from the artist by Glasgow’s city fathers, [Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross] painting is at the centre of a legal investigation which may yet snare a death metal band from Alsace in France, ashtray manufacturers, and poster-makers in the US, Britain, Italy and Spain.

The [Glasgow City] council believes it has been losing tens of thousands of pounds in unpaid licensing fees and royalties a year from unauthorised copies of Christ of St John of the Cross, which was bought for £8,200 and now valued at more than £60m.

Lawyers acting for Glasgow city council have drawn up a hit-list of 50 companies, manufacturers and artists selling hand-painted copies, who are suspected of illegally copying it. Warnings have been issued to 25 firms and individuals across the world – some wrongly claiming to have the council’s permission to reuse the image – to “cease and desist” or face legal action.

Apparently, Dali’s sale of the painting included copyright ownership to the image. More from The Guardian here.

There’s a big brawl brewing all over the blogosphere over Brandeis University’s decision yesterday to hold a fire-sale of all its artworks located in its Rose Art Museum. Read more on this story in our Deaccessioning Blog here, as well as Donn’s take here and Rosenbaum’s take here.