Archive of Henry Lydiate‘s Artlaw column, published in Art Monthly since 1976. Have a legal question about your career? Check our Directory or send us a legal query.
Lost in Translation
Plagiarism and copyright infringement are often misunderstood as being the same, but are not: they may overlap, but are separate wrongs. Plagiarism is a violation of ethical norms and policies, typically in academic and professional disciplines, but…
This Is Not by Me
Keith Haring’s last canvas painting continues to be the focus of intense social media controversy in these first months of 2024, triggered by an X tweeted image of the work’s purported completion using generative AI…
The Unasked Question
‘Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ’ – so goes an old music business saying that may also apply in the art business. Significant financial gains by hit makers in the art world sometimes trigger lawsuits by…
A Curious Act of Vandalism
In June 2021 an accused vandal, who admitted spray painting a publicly sited sculpture by Antony Gormley, was found not guilty of committing an offence of criminal damage because the jury accepted the accused’s defence…
Online Image
The art world’s general manoeuvring towards online exhibiting and selling because of physical distancing restrictions during the Covid 19 pandemic has seen increased use of digital technologies to communicate images of artwork to spectators prevented from physical viewing.…
Ownership
When is a ‘work’ completed? Is it when the artist releases it for public viewing, and/or only if released for sale? What is the status of a work an artist (or a deceased artist’s estate) disowns after its release?…
Love & Money
There has been an unprecedented amount of media coverage of Banksy’s Girl with Balloon (2006) shredding incident since it took place at Sotheby’s London’s evening sale of contemporary art on 5 October 2018. But none of this…
A Landmark Case?
Can the integrity of publicly sited sculpture be damaged by siting another object close to it? Think of landmark works such as Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, 1988, or Andy Scott’s Kelpies, 2013: would their integrity…
Dire Straits: in the gallery
Although great strength and power can be drawn from legal information and knowledge, the processes of applying and using the law are often regarded as too cumbersome, complex and costly to be of any real…
Estates
Three apparently unlinked events were reported in the media during the past month. On closer examination they reveal an interesting common thread: the death on March 4, 2003, of Francis Bacon’s sole beneficiary; recent reports from Romania of further…
Christoph Büchel v Mass MoCA
In September 2007 a US court gave judgement in an unprecedented case that focused on the meaning of authorship. It concerned an installation, Training Ground For Democracy, commissioned by the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art…
Gallery of Lost Art
Summer 2012 in the UK was notable for the opening of two unique exhibitions with closely related themes: invisible art and lost art. On 12 June London’s Hayward Gallery opened ‘Invisible: Art About the Unseen 1957…
Authenticity Certificates Value
What is the essence of a Sol LeWitt wall drawing? What makes these works – which famously exist as a series of instructions, executable by anyone who owns them – authentic LeWitts and not just some lines…
Authentication Revisited
Authenticity certificates were explored in last month’s column (Art Monthly 355). This month we revisit the subject in the light of further authentication disputes and debates. Art Fairs have vastly increased in number over the past ten years…
Authenticity Certificates
Public and private collectors and art market professionals have started to request certificates of authenticity to accompany the transfer of ownership of works. What are they, how are they used, who provides them and what is their legal…
Up Against the Wall: part 2
Moral Abuses Moral, as opposed to economic, abuse cases are prevalent. One was discussed in last month’s AM issue, and here are some more. Each is a true story. Not satisfied with a completed…
The Right to Destroy Artwork
Michael Landy’s Break Down installation on London’s Oxford Street opened to the public for two weeks in February 2001, and made national broadcast news headlines following the press view. The work was commissioned by The…
Monumental Manoeuvres in the Dark
The destruction of a sculpture the Government specifically commissioned and permanently installed on a national site is one of the more outrageous of the issues raised recently. I don’t care How many letters they sent…