Henry Lydiate in his presentation for Visual Artists & The Law discusses how his art law practice developed and the key legal issues that confront contemporary visual artists in their working life.
Copyright Henry Lydiate. Images copyright the artists concerned.
1. Visual Artists and the Law
Dublin 17 May 2012
Henry Lydiate
The Henry Lydiate Partnership LLP
Orleston House London N7 8LL
T+44(0)20 7607 9373 M+44(0) 7976 942 038
henry@thehenrylydiatepartnership.com
www.thehenrylydiatepartnership.com
Limited Liability Partnership registered in England Wales OC319735
2. Artlaw Research Project: 1976/7
commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
(CGF) and Arts Council Great Britain (ACGB)
“ To investigate the provision of legal services to visual
artists in England and Wales;
to measure the extent of any unmet need;
to put forward a written report on the situation,
and proposals for the use and development of existing
services
and the establishment of provision for any unmet need.”
3. Artlaw Research Project Report
The Visual Artist and the Law
December 1977
Four key findings:
1. Artists and art administrators in England and Wales urgently required access to
information, advice and assistance to deal with legal problems in relation to their
work
2. Such legal services were required from lawyers with knowledge and experience of
the visual art world, who had specialised in dealing with such problems
3. Such legal services were required to be available to all artists and art
administrators for fees they could afford
4. Five unmet needs
4. Unmet Need #1 : Information
no publications were available that
adequately dealt with the law relating to the
visual arts, for the use of artists, art
administrators, or lawyers
5. Unmet Need #2 : Education
no art or law schools offered students courses that dealt with
the law relating to the visual arts
no arts administration course offered students adequate
materials on the subject
no individuals or organisations provided such education
6. Unmet Need #3 : Training
no professional training courses for artists dealing with the
law relating to the visual arts
only two arts administration courses dealt with the general
law relating to all the arts
no individual or other organisation provided such training
7. Unmet Need #4 : Advice
few lawyers with knowledge or experience of the visual arts
specialised in dealing with the legal problems of visual
artists
the majority of artists required, but could not afford, such
services
general legal practitioners were unable to provide such
services for economic reasons or because of lack of
interest in the subject
artists were unable to pay for, or to persuade lawyers to
develop, such an interest
Law Centres and Legal Advice Centres specialised only in
welfare law problems
no other individual or organisation provided such advice
8. Unmet Need #5: Assistance
few lawyers specialised in the law related to the
visual arts
few were willing to develop a special interest in the
field
no organisation existed that referred artists to such
lawyers for legal assistance with such problems
9. Artlaw Research Project Report:
Key Recommendations
establishment of a national artlaw service
an independent charitable body
governed by a board comprising
professional visual artists, art administrators, and lawyers
specialising in artlaw
public conference at Chelsea School of Art, January 1978
attended by artists, commercial and public art administrators,
and interested lawyers
unanimous endorsement
10. Artlaw Services: 1978/83
Board Members included
- artists Richard Wentworth and Elton Bash
- administrators Nicholas Serota & David Panton
- art lawyers Richard Swan and Henry Lydiate
Patrons included
- artists Joseph Beuys, Mark Boyle & Joan Hills, Richard
Hamilton, Paul Neagu, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Tom Phillips
- arts lawyers Laurence Harbottle, Jeremy Hutchinson QC,
Geoffrey Robertson, and Michael Rubinstein
11. Four artlaw services were provided
specialist legal information, advice and help from two full-
time in-house art lawyers and around 50 unpaid volunteer
art lawyers, free at the point of delivery
publications, including contents of art business contracts,
and guides on copyright, income tax, and finding and
maintaining a studio
education programme, developing and delivering
professional practice courses and sessions at most art
schools in the UK
research into artlaw matters and the provision and
development of specialist legal and business services to the
visual art community
12. Annual Revenue Funding 1978/83
Arts Council Great Britain
Welsh Arts Council
Crafts Council
1981 ACGB cuts & CGF ends
subscription income
expenditure cuts
dissolution
13. Artists Legal & Business Challenges Today
artists in particular (and art market professionals) need access to
specialist legal advice and help, and at a price they can afford
artists have become increasingly self-reliant: through & post 70s 80s &
90s recessions, and have increasingly addressed the ‘commercial
dimension’ of creative practice
artists have embraced digital technology, and developed new forms of
expression and ways of working
artists have developed new (and continue to have traditional) legal &
business challenges
examples:
18. Banksy
no gallery for many years
no objects for sale
environment as gallery
skilfully avoids legal challenges
urban guerrilla to mainstream business practice
now commissioned
now selling objects
retains total anonymity
Banksy NYC
market value
22. Alison Jackson
uses conventional mainstream broadcast media and
publishing as both her art form and dissemination
medium
as an artist, not as television producer
aims and objectives determined by artistic parameters
uses media to subvert and question notions of celebrity;
and toys with ‘it’s on television/in print, so it must be true’
response
skilfully uses laws:
“ My aim is to explore the blurred boundaries between
reality and the imaginary – the gap and confusion
between the two. I recreate scenes of our greatest fears
which we think are documentary but are fiction.”
24. Christo & Jeanne-Claude
Wrapped Reichstag
Berlin 1971-1995
26. Christo & Jeanne-Claude,
Running Fence, 1972-6
when Christo set out to erect a fabric fence across 24 miles
of California ranch land, he encountered massive resistance
from landowners and bureaucrats alike, in addition to
conservationists who thought he would harm the landscape
the fence extended across the rolling hills of northern
California to the Pacific Ocean, and provided what Christo
referred to as ‘an obstructive membrane’ that he hoped
would change public perception of the land
permission was eventually obtained from county, state, and
federal agencies, plus scores of private land owners
fined $60,000 for not obtaining permission from the
California Coastal Commission
27. Christo & Jeanne-Claude
use environment as gallery
intervene in it and change it
work goes to spectator’s environment, rather than
spectator to gallery
huge challenges posing technical, legal & procedural
issues
each work is a business project – have been described as
art works using the law as a medium
£$ for which raised by selling IPR in advance
also sell related drawings, collages, works on paper
cf. merchandising a rock band on tour
30. Damien Hirst
has successfully re-worked the Italian Renaissance atelier
model (via Warhol)
huge demand
production line of employees
numerous editions of iconic works: spots, spins, butterflies
DH: R&D plus controversial & experimental work stimulating
more demand
acutely aware of own public image and behaviour and its
relationship to brand
extensions: Quo Vadis; The Pharmacy;
For the Love of God; Beautiful Inside My Head Forever
“art business” and “business art” : Warhol
“Making money is art and working is art and good business
is the best art.”: Warhol
31. New Ways of Working - New Challenges
artists increasingly working collaboratively, with each other, with others
and in new/different contexts
new/different objectives and creative paradigms
recent trends:
- mixed media works
- appropriation of material
- open source and content material
- www usage
- collaborating with curators/spaces
- installations and performative works
- sound art; sci-art; book art; appropriation art
- land art; public art
requires new skills, new knowledge, different approach
32. Key Challenges
artists are increasingly using:
business skills
entrepreneurial skills
advanced project management
business support mechanisms
knowledge transfer
requires new/extended skill set from artists
requires holistic approach to professional practice in the
creative curriculum for studio-based art students
requires continuing professional development for artists
requires special kinds of collaborative support and help
in some ways a return to the Renaissance model