Fordham Law School is launching the Fashion Law Institute, “the world’s first fashion law center, for fall 2010. The Institute will provide legal services for design students and designers, train the fashion lawyers and designers of the future, and offer information and assistance on issues facing the fashion industry. It was created with the generous support and advice of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and its President Diane von Furstenberg.” The institute is spearheaded by Susan Scafidi. There’s been a resent upsurge in law and fashion activity. For those interested in getting in on the action, check out Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts‘ fashion law classes, led by Elena M. Paul, on starting a fashion business, as well as on the ethical and legal issues in fashion.

Last but not least, Amy Landers, of the PrafsBlawg, comments on the legal differences between France and the U.S. when it comes to piracy of fashion products.

Back from a nice week-long vacation. The good thing? Distance from daily news. The bad news? Distance from daily news.

Most of you have probably heard, but for archive reasons here it is. The BBC reported this past Thursday that five paintings by Picasso, Matisse and other great artists, estimated to be worth $123 million (100m euros) have been stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. They were taken overnight on Wednesday the 19th and reported missing early on Thursday, May 20th. The NY Times reported on Friday that the mayor of Paris has demanded an internal investigation to probe weaknesses in the city’s security system that malfunctioned during the break-in.

The following essay was originally titled Who Needs an Art Critic: Law and the Space of Writing, and written for the 2010 CAA Conference in Chicago, Ill. I am now making it available in its entirety, and will appear in five parts, beginning today. The five part series will continue tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday, and conclude on Friday. Enjoy.

Who Needs an Art Critic: Law and Art Criticism, Part I

Art criticism, as it stands, is devoid of any substance and content. As if that isn’t enough, art criticism suffers from a lack of relevance, freshness and, most importantly, timeliness. But it is art criticism’s own arrogant ignorance of law which has led it to its own demise, for the practice and theory of law has affected, and continues to affect, the production and reception of art.

This past January, The Atlantic’s Michael Kinsley wrote about why people are turning from newsprint media to the internet. In his article, “Cut This Story!,” Kinsley particularly bashed the New York Times, and although his criticism was aimed at newspapers in general, his thoughts are apropos to this panel. In a nutshell, Kinsley’s sharp critique confronts not only the fact that newspapers like the New York Times are politically biased, but also that this political bias is but one factor in making news articles lengthy and wordy—needlessly so. Kinsley points out that the other factor in making print publications near-obsolete is the fact that writers and journalists speak at length about everything but the actual story; newspaper articles are too long, yet internet news articles get to the point.

Kinsley notes that once upon a time this fluff was considered “an advance over dry news reporting: don’t just tell the story; tell the reader what it means.” Unfortunately, providing “context” has become an invitation to provide the lowest form of hype, “horse-race hype,” which diminishes the story rather than enhancing it. As if this isn’t bad enough, adds Kinsley, “everything is filtered through politics.” Art critics fall well within this category. Point-in-fact, Hal Foster.

Last December’s Artforum invited “a broad spectrum of artists, critics, and curators to revisit the year in art,” to contribute thoughts about art exhibitions that had been profound to the writer and thus that should be profound to the reader (otherwise why would anyone care what’s profound to Artforum writers). I note that I don’t pick on this particular journal for a reason other than convenience. Artforum also asked art historian and critic Hal Foster to reflect on the decade that was. I’ll apply a bit of Kinsley and note that Foster spends two paragraphs (338 words) pontificating about the evils of Bush and Blair, Reagan and Thatcher, while sprinkling these two paragraphs with the usual theory suspects, Schmitt, Benjamin, and Agamben, before he first mentions anything remotely related to art (and at this point it’s of course Clement Greenberg). It’s pretty clear to me that if you’re reading Artforum you not only have $10 to spend on die-hard art advertising, you’re also already well-aware that (a) THERE’S AN UNPOPULAR WAR; (b) that most readers of Artforum agree and would whole-heartedly confirm that there was a “stolen presidential election.”; (c) that the last decade “targeted” the “most vulnerable” individuals in our society, the underclass, gays and lesbians, and immigrants; and (d) that you’ve already read, or at least been indoctrinated with, the writings of Schmitt, Benjamin, Agamben, and Greenberg.

It only gets better.

Artforum also searched for a token of political correctness, and found it in Okwui Enwezor. In presenting his “top ten highlights” of 2009, Enwezor willingly obliged. To no one’s surprise (at least certainly not mine), Enwezor highlights the election of the U.S.’s first black president peppered with a bit more Agamben; the “singularity and radicality” of Michael Jackson (although I believe we can agree that it was unclear if he died black or white); the “refighting” of Reagan’s revanchist culture wars, exemplified by the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and the nomination of our first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor; and of course a nod to the politically correct way to exhibit African art (by Foundation Beyeler, Basel).

Meanwhile, writing for the Village Voice in March of 2008, David Mamet explained why he’s “no longer a brain-dead liberal.” Quoting John Maynard Keynes, Mamet explains, “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” In this article, Mamet explains the he was a child of the ‘60s, and thus took on a liberal view for decades, accepting as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart. However, he notes that that these ingrained precepts had become “increasingly impracticable prejudices” because he no longer applied them in his life. “No,” Mamet declares, contrary to popular liberal belief, everything is not always wrong. People are not genuinely good at heart. In fact, given the right amount of stress, he notes, they can certainly behave like swine. So how does one counter these pigs? The U.S. Constitution Mamet answers, “[f]or the Constitution, [written by men with some experience of actual government], rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes, to the contrary, that people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interest.” (One may note that Mamet’s keen insights on the U.S. Constitution mirror his infatuation with law via film and stage set, as seen in Oleanna, Homicide, House of Games, American Buffalo, and of course his most recent production, Race.)

Continued tomorrow!

Marguerite Hoffman, a prominent Dallas art collector, filed suit this week against Mexican financier David Martinez for failing to keep her 2007 sale of a star Mark Rothko painting a secret. The suit stems from the painting’s public sale tonight at Sotheby’s, estimated to fetch as much as $25 million. Three years ago, after her 59-year-old husband’s death, Hoffman sold the painting to an undisclosed buyer, with the proviso that the details of the sale remain a secret, according to her lawsuit, filed in a Dallas, Texas, district court. Via Bloomberg News.

FBI agents investigating a long-running art theft ring have arrested Kurt Lidtke, a Seattle art dealer, convicted in a different theft three years ago. The move coincided with the arrests of Jerry and Georgia Christy, of Granite Falls, Wash., who were arrested at their home and were expected in U.S. District Court at Seattle later in the day. The three allegedly conspired to steal art from Seattle-area homes.

Via Seattle PI.

Fabrizio Cammisecra, an Italian graffiti artist, has been sharply criticized for spray-painting walls at the notorious Khmer Rouge execution center, otherwise known as Tuol Sleng, or S-21, where thousands of victims of the Khmer Rouge were tortured and executed between 1975 and 1979. Via Earth Times.

Doesn’t seem like a joke. Posterboy, aka Henry Matyjewicz, was sentenced to 11 months in jail by a Brooklyn judge this morning. Matyjewicz was taken into custody immediately and sent to Rikers Island. Originally expected to get 3 years probation, his no-show in court on May 6th seemed to upset the judge and garner Posterboy eleven months hard time. Ouch! Via Animal.

Kerry James Marshall. Many Mansions, 1994

Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall is designing a 37-foot-high monument in Des Moines, Iowa, on the city’s Principal Riverwalk, commemorating the black lawyers in the state who formed the National Bar Association in 1925. According to the Des Moines Register:

Back in 1925, black lawyers in Iowa, excluded from the American Bar Association, founded an alternative called the National Bar Association (NBA). The irony of discrimination happening in the very place we look to for justice – the legal profession – was compounded by the blatancy of the offense. “If you didn’t tell them you were black, you could join,” says a former NBA president, Judge Odell McGhee. The first meeting was attended by lawyers from all over the country. No state bar admitted blacks.

Marshall’s installation will depict two African “talking drums,” one on top of the other, slightly off center. They represent the goal of equal justice and the occasional imbalance. The base of the work will serve as a stage, with an engraving of the First Amendment on it. Construction is scheduled to begin next year.

Via the Des Moines Register and the ABA Journal.

Chevron asked a federal judge to order the release of outtakes from Joe Berlinger’s 2009 documentary, Crude, shot in Ecuador, saying the footage will exonerate the company in a multibillion trial in Ecuador. But an attorney for Berlinger and Third Eye Productions said that granting Chevron’s request would be a blow to the First Amendment. Berlinger is contesting Chevron’s request, arguing that he could never work as a documentary filmmaker again if his sources could not be guaranteed confidentiality. However, when asked if there were any confidentiality agreements signed, Berlinger’s attorney simply replied that confidentialiy agreements are “never put in writing.”

However, Chevron attorney Randy Mastro argues that there are film clips which would show that Chevron was denied due process in Ecuador. Mastro showed scenes in court which he said showed that attorneys representing the plaintiffs in Ecuador engaged in misconduct, “doing things that no attorney would do.”

Chevron claims it faces a baseless lawsuit in Ecuador, financed by the U.S. law firm Kohn, Swift and Graf, which is looking for a $27 billion payday for itself and its clients, Ecuadoran nongovernmental organizations.

Berlinger’s other films include “Paradise Lost” and “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.” Courthouse News Service has more here.

UPDATE: May 6, 2010

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court granted a petition by Chevron to issue a subpoena for hundreds of hours of footage from a documentary about the pollution of the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador and the oil company’s involvement. Via NY Times.

Over a beer last week, a friend commented to me that law is currently the hot and sexy topic in the so-called “art world.” I chuckled, mentioning that if true, it would be lamentable if law was taken in a simplistic form, meaning in a symbolic and representational manner more so than as a practice and medium: where art engages law to test itself, law, or both.

Enter the Van Abbemuseum. In one of its current exhibitions, In-Between Minimalisms; Free Sol Lewitt, the museum asks:

What obstacles do museums encounter in the process of collecting cultural heritage? What is the nature of the tension that ensues from the proliferation of mass information sharing (the Internet) on the one hand and copyright law, which imposes limits on information sharing, on the other? What does it mean for a museum to ‘possess’ a work of art. What is actually owned?

Photo Peter Cox.

In their attempt to answer these questions, the Museum invited the Danish art-trio SUPERFLEX to create an art project addressing these issues. SUPERFLEX responded with the exhibition, In-between Minimalisms, and a new work, Free Sol Lewitt. This is where it gets a bit interesting. In the Free Sol Lewitt project, SUPERFLEX has set up a workshop where a couple of workmen work daily on reproducing LeWitt’s Untitled (Wall Structure). In the workshop, “workmen cut the aluminium, weld it into a lattice structure, sand this form and then paint it white. The copies lie stacked in a corner awaiting their new destinations. The copies will be distributed free-of-charge to the public through a random system which visitors to the museum can sign-up for. The installation makes the production, presentation and distribution of an art work simultaneously visible.”

According to its website, the Museum believes it that its duty to present and disseminate cultural property is being hampered by copyright. “Yet, copyright laws can potentially prevent the museum from being able to fulfil its task. What should the museum’s position be in the current information age where the capacity to share and exchange information is restricted by the economic interests protected by copyright?” I’m not sure museums are being hampered by copyright or other laws, unless of course if by “hampering” they mean that with the growing importance of copyright laws (or laws as they apply to museums in general) museums cannot disseminate images of copyrighted works nilly-willy. Keep in mind also that they’ve never been able to disseminate the actual works at their leisure.

Unfortunately, in this project, I’m left with a bit of bewilderment at what exactly is supposed to be under critique or analysis. It isn’t law. And if it is, it’s too simple. We all know these Lewitt reproductions aren’t Lewitts; they’re not accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. What we have is a fake Prada bag produced in an art museum. In that light, it does raise issues of the current state of global piracy and a consumer’s acquiescence in that system. That’s about it. Does it critique hampered dissemination? Not really. I can still view hundreds of Sol Lewitt art projects online, in art history books, in monographs, and heck, right up the Hudson Valley at Dia:Beacon.

It’s a shame that a robust doctrine of law such as copyright is not taken more seriously. Perhaps soon. Stay tuned!