Gallery commission
When you sell work through a gallery, they will often take a percentage of the sale. This is called a gallery commission. The gallery takes this money to help pay for their business costs. When you enter into…
VAT minus Zero – no limit
VAT is a pain in the arts. My two recent columns on the subject – Vexing Art Toll? (AM No 24) and VAT Revisited (AM No 29) – have aroused so much interest and…
Management of Creativity
There once was a man who said God Must think it exceedingly odd If He Finds that this tree Continues to be When there’s no one around in the Quad (Mgr Ronald Knox) Train journeys can be…
Dire Straits – outside the gallery
No lies he wouldn’t compromise No junk no bits of string And all the lies we subsidise That just don’t mean a thing I’ve got to say he passed away in obscurity And now…
Appropriation Art and Fair Uses
‘Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.’ So wrote TS Eliot in The Sacred Wood in 1920. His epigram was probably adapted from Igor Stravinsky’s comment that ‘a good composer does not imitate; he steals’, as…
Can I sell my copyright?
Copyright can only be ‘assigned’ (sold or given away) by the execution of a written document signed by the copyright owner. It is not advisable, however, to assign or otherwise dispose of your copyright over…
New Labour Arts Policies
This issue will be the last before the forthcoming General Election and so, as we have done over the past 20 years, we will try to explore the likely policies of the party that looks most…
Making Waives
A gallery which advertises a work for sale is allowed to make reproductions without the copyright owners’ permission. But it is not allowed to generally merchandise; catalogues or posters which are subsequently put on sale to the public…
Questions of Attribution
Richard Hamilton took part in a discussion, ‘The Legacy of Duchamp’, at Tate Britain in early May 2003. This pointed up many interesting reflections on contemporary visual practice, including the tracing of direct links between the works…
Appropriation of Media
In the endless search for new ideas and forms of expression, artists are increasingly embracing the use of contemporary technologies: the internet, computer hardware and software, film, video, digital cameras and sound recordings. Such new ways of…
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…
Life After Art School
Art school education was first publicly funded in the UK during the reign of King Charles 1 in the 17th century, and developed in the 18th century through the establishment of academies of art supported by…
Censorship
Time, place, social values and mores are the themes of these pieces, as they explore specific incidents where artworks have been the subject of threatened or actual 'censorship' These works, and/or their authors or curators were subjected to legal…
Public Exhibition Payments
Recently there has been increasing interest in the question of payments to artists whose work is exhibited in public. Any scheme devised would necessarily have legal implications; for this reason, and as a contribution to a wider…
Constitutions
A constitution is simply a document laying out and explaining the governing rules and aims of an organisation. It also explains the form of the organisation and the limts of its power. This is a list of the most…
The Boyle Family
Mark Boyle interviewed by Henry Lydiate Henry Lydiate’s Artlaw Column appeared in the first issue of Art Monthly when he first met Mark Boyle and his family. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Artlaw and the opening…
New UK Legislation Part 1
Significant changes were made to UK copyright law on October 31, 2003, of which copyright owners, licensees, and other would be users of copyright works need to be aware. The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations…
Dealing in Fakes
Since the criminal prosecution of the late and celebrated Tom Keating in the 80s, the UK has not experienced serious allegations of sales of forged or counterfeit artworks although there was in recent years an allegation made…