“In modern Western, liberal democratic spheres, the law in many instances … governs by deferring authority to the system of art,” McClean says. Trials also examines how the law acts to protect art and its circulation, and calls out inherent contradictions in the relationship between the two domains.
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Most recently, he published Trials of Art, an account of cases in which artists have been tried for transgressions of legal, ethical, and cultural conventions. While in law school, McClean wrote Dear Images, which explores the interface between copyright and art from the perspective of law, cultural theory, and art history. He then earned a law degree in 2005 from the University of London, with emphasis on intellectual property as pertaining to the arts. He began curating in the early ’90s, working for Marian Goodman in New York, Artangel in London, and Nanjo and Associates in Tokyo. Offer & Exchange, now in its third year, relies on McClean’s hybrid position as both curator and lawyer. “It excavates relationships, and becomes a diagrammatic structure in a way that is real and binding.” “In each case, the contract becomes both the mechanism and the document for recording processes of negotiation and exchange,” McClean says. He is currently facilitating a pending agreement between the Danish collective Superflex and a well-known art magazine, which stipulates that the latter cannot print the word “Superflex” in its pages for three years if the magazine defaults, the collective will be assigned full editorial control of the publication for a single issue. Sierra installed a giant LED counter across the façade of the company’s prominent headquarters that registered the annual number of human deaths worldwide - in exchange for a year-long, 150,000-Euro life insurance policy. In 2009, he arranged a site-specific commission between Madrid-based Santiago Sierra and London’s Hiscox Insurers.
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“Not only do they govern property relations and distribution, but there are also links between conceptual art and the law in terms of immateriality, performance and action.”Īs part of Offer & Exchange, an ongoing series of commissions he co-curates with Lisa Rosendahl (director of the Baltic Art Center in Sweden), McClean has negotiated situations between artists, museums, galleries, collectors, and the public that challenge assumptions using the history of Siegelaub’s work as point of departure. “The contract becomes a fascinating site of reflection,” says Daniel McClean, both curator and attorney in London, who collaborates with artists to design contracts that skewer dynamics among art world players. He interviewed hundreds of artists before writing the contract and hired a lawyer to help him do it. In other words, it would become a physical component of the work - and a function of Siegelaub’s larger project to politicize economic relationships within the art market. The three-page paper was adhered to the art object when possible, or pasted to a separate “notice of ownership” that traveled with ephemera during transfers. For example, artists must be compensated at the time of resale if their work has appreciated in value or collectors must actually sign their name to the agreement, limiting undeclared monetary exchange. For more information, click on the link above.In 1971, Seth Siegelaub - seminal curator, dealer and publicist - drafted “The Artists’ Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement,” a legal document that confronted perceived inequities in the art world by setting controversial terms for the sale of art works. Honorees are leaders whose acts of generosity and examples of innovation have inspired so many others to stretch beyond their "comfort zones" and take on the challenges of our times. In 2008, we conceived of the Artistic License Awards to recognize persons and organizations who have mastered their arts (intended in the broadest possible sense) in extraordinary ways for the communities they serve. Here's a description:Īrtistic License implies so many ideas: freedom of expression, residual rights and royalties, the daring to be different, to make a difference through innovation and service. Accordingly, they're sponsoring a terrific event the evening of May 21st at the William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica, the Artistic License Awards. One of my clients, the Los Angeles-based law firm of Cypress LLP, has a fascinating practice in art law, which includes legal work in support of returning art stolen or looted during military conflicts to the rightful owners.