Cell Block
Dear Prisoner 035178 You will have wondered why you failed to receive your April copy of Art Monthly (#235), which was posted to you as usual last month. It was received at the prison on April 20, but…
Play with Fire
The typewriter ribbon had the grace to hold out until I entered the last full stop on my overdue column for Art Occasionally. It was 4 a.m. I snapped off the desk light and realised the resulting…
Soul Trading
The classic ‘who, where and how’ of marketing, to which Nich Pearson implicitly referred last month (Art Monthly No 95, p.9) when bemoaning the absence of vigorous professional marketing in the visual arts in recent years, inspired serious…
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…
Power Plays: Chimes of Freedom
The attempted censorship of the Power Plays exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery by Hull City Council in October raises issues of the greatest importance. An explanation of its legal facets will enable us to…
Artlaw History
In November 2009 Artquest’s online practical information, advice and support service for visual artists and craftspeople was overhauled and improved. It included a major restructuring of the Artlaw Archive of articles published in Art Monthly from its first…
Welfare in the State of Art
Debates in the House of Lords are renowned for their quality but not necessarily for packing a punch sufficient to hit the Government into action. However, with the new Minister for the Arts operating…
Postmodern Artwork
Just like the proverbial long wait at the bus stop and then three buses come along at once, there has been a bumper crop of recent illuminating copyright lawsuits involving works by artists as diverse as Richard Prince,…
Art & Copyright
Most UK lawyers know little about intellectual property law, because it has never been a compulsory subject for professional qualification. Simon Stokes, Art & Copyright, Hart Publishing, Oxford and Portland, Oregon, 2001, 184pp, £25.00, 1 84113 225…
Copyright and Moral rights: New legislation (part 1)
In May or June 1989, visual artists’ and craftspeoples’ rights will be substantially improved when the new Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988 comes into force. Key changes anticipated were signposted…
Commercial Dimensions
The UK's creative industries currently earn £112b a year according to statistics from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, representing a growth rate of 9% annually between 1997 and 2000 (compared to an average of 2.8% for…
Wapping Blues
If your memory serves you well, You’ll remember you’re the one That called on me to call on them To get your favours done. And after every plan had failed And there was nothing more to tell, You…
Who owns Elizabeth Frink?
Elisabeth Frink’s Desert Quartet, 1990, comprises four bronze sculptures commissioned in 1985 by property developers The Avon Group as an integrated external feature of their then new Montague Centre shopping precinct in the coastal town of…
About the articles
In 1976, Henry Lydiate, then a newly qualified barrister, received funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to set up a practice specifically providing legal advice to visual artists. Artlaw Services provided free information and legal advice to…
New Administration: Reforms and Innovations
On June 10, the newly elected Government will begin to plan its legislative programme for the next five years. In 1979 this column reported the current state of play in relation to the possible legislative…
Doing a Deal: Part 2
Last month’s column explored the basics of UK contract law and good practices for artists and galleries conducting negotiations with a view to arriving at a gallery deal. This month we look in more detail…
Artists Bearing Gifts: Revisited
Gifts of work by artists to public institutions are an important and valuable method of promoting wider interest in and access to work, and of acquiring critical endorsement. During the past year, several correspondents have raised…
Artists Resale Right: 4th Year Report
February 2010 marks the fourth anniversary of the introduction into UK law of the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR). Invented by the French around a century ago, where is it known as droit de suite,…