Category Archives: Events

Interview for The Conversation Art Podcast online now

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Rambling about all things resale royalties, artists’ rights, and contracts, as usual! This was an especially interesting opportunity for what happened behind the scenes. Before we started the podcast, I negotiated a new guest contract that would acknowledge the collaborative dimensions of my conversation with host Michael Shaw, so that it was neither of our exclusive intellectual property but a joint work. On a practical dimension, that means that we both hold  copyright in the work. On a philosophical level, it recognizes each of our contributions, and that this – as in so much creative production – is a work that could only have come into being because of what we both brought to it. Thank you Michael! 

P.S.A.: Always read your contracts, and never shy away from renegotiating their terms! 

Epis.#253: Lauren van Haaften-Schick – curator, writer and PhD candidate – on the past, present and future of artists’ resale royalties; rights; and laws

 

Rethinking Artists’ Rights: Roundtable Series at Pioneer Works, April 18, May 15, June 18

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Rethinking Artists’ Rights
Roundtable series at Pioneer Works
April 18 // May 15 // June 18 // 7-9pm
159 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn, NY

Senator Alphonse D'Amato (R-New York) denouncing NEA funding to Andres Serrano and other artists before congress, May 18, 1989.

Senator Alphonse D’Amato denouncing NEA funding to Andres Serrano
and other artists before congress, May 18, 1989.

Artists played a pivotal role in protests and government hearings on resale royalties, moral rights, and free speech during the 1960s-90s, but the legacy and relevance of that activism remains under-discussed. Since the destructive culture wars of thirty years ago, collaboration with law and policy makers has seemed fraught, leading us to question whether we should work with government or institutions, or build self-determined alternatives. Recent case law has produced an equally contested terrain, revealing ways in which artists’ rights issues can challenge cultural and legal norms of value, ownership, and free speech, while also demonstrating that the privilege granted to artistic expression can be manipulated for political ends. In this time of heightened political involvement, how might the art community re-engage artists’ rights as a local politics? And how do we come to terms with the use of artists and artists’ rights in the larger context of ‘culture wars’ and anti-intellectualism deployed in the political field today?

This three-part roundtable series will bring together practitioners from art and law to unpack the legacies of artists’ rights statutes and cases, and imagine new ways forward.

Organized and facilitated by Lauren van Haaften-Schick and Kenneth Pietrobono.

Wednesday April 18, 7-9pm
National Endowment for the Arts ‘decency clause’: 20 U.S.C. § 954(d)(1) (1990)
Following a series of battles over the public funding of art, new legislation mandated that the NEA only fund artworks adhering to “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public.” In the ensuing case NEA v. Finley (1998) the Supreme Court found that the clause was not a violation of free speech, perhaps leaving uncertainty concerning the ability of artists to contest or create the laws directly impacting them.
Guest: Svetlana Mintcheva, Director of programs at the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Register here

Tuesday May 15, 7-9pm
The Visual Artists Rights Act: 17 U.S.C. § 106a (1990)
Moral rights laws protect an artists’ work from being misattributed to them, and modified or destroyed against their will, among other rights. The statute is anomalous under U.S. law for granting artists continued control over their sold works, but also relies upon a potentially constricted definition of art. Recent cases including Mass MoCA v. Büchel, and the erasure of the graffiti hub 5Pointz will be discussed, among others.
Guests: Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, Artist & Art Lawyer, founder and director of the Art & Law Program, Renee Vara, founder and CEO of Vara Art advisory, and Abram Coetsee, PhD Candidate at Cornell University.
Register here

Monday June 18, 7-9pm
The American Royalties Too Act of 2015: H.R. 1881
Over 70 countries have laws granting resale royalties for artists, but no federal law exists in the U.S., and the most recent proposed legislation, H.R. 1881, died in congressional committee. The California Resale Royalties Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 986 (1976) is the exception, but a suite of court decisions in recent years have dissolved its enforceability. The status of resale royalties laws will be discussed, in addition to historic and emerging alternatives, such as artist’s contracts.
Guest: Donn Zaretsky, Partner at John Silberman Associates PC in New York, concentrating his practice in art law.
Register here

All events free and open to the public with advance registration.

 

Associate Director, The Art & Law Program, and Call For Applications

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I’m pleased to announce that in January 2016 I will join artist and lawyer Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento as Associate Director of the Art & Law Program in New York City. In 2012 I participated in the Program as a curatorial fellow, and have returned many times since as a guest seminar leader. I’m extremely pleased to contribute to the continued growth of the Program and look forward for the exciting developments that the 2016 season will bring.

The Program is now taking applications for the spring 2016 session

About

The Art & Law Program (“The Program”) is a 13-week seminar series with a theoretical and philosophical focus on the effects of law and jurisprudence on cultural production and reception. An examination of how artistic practices challenge, rupture, and change the apparatus of law completes The Program. The Program consists of a nonpartisan community that aims to attract qualified individuals in the areas of visual art, architecture, writing, curating, and film. This list is non-exclusive. Artists with non-traditional practices are especially encouraged to apply, as are cultural producers interested in the cultural effects of law. The Art & Law Program takes place in New York City from mid-January to early May. In 2016 the Program will hold its seminars at the Triple Canopy space in Brooklyn. Until further notice, please reserve Monday and Wednesday nights, 6-9pm, for these seminars.

Fellows of The Program will meet once a week to discuss readings and visual materials with the Director of the Program, Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, curator/art historian and Associate Director of the Program, Lauren van Haaften-Schick; and/or with a guest seminar leader. Seminar leaders assign required readings and present ideas and materials relevant to their areas of practice. There is a particular emphasis on the understanding of legal cases and texts through a close analysis of reading and writing.

Through an analysis of legal structures and modes of thought, the Program aims to critique current artistic, curatorial, theoretical and art historical practices and methodologies. Conversely, the use of law and jurisprudence as theory, practice and medium is explored.

Please note that The Program does not focus on traditional and conventional critical theories (e.g.- Marxism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, feminism, globalization, etc.), but rather investigates how the philosophy and practice of law disturbs the critical theory establishment and creates a new space and discourse for aesthetic, cultural and intellectual practices.

The Art & Law Program will conclude with an end-of-program retreat at Denniston Hill artist residency.

Who Should Apply? 

The Program seeks qualified, open-minded and self-motivated individuals with a genuine and rigorous attraction to critical thought and debate. In particular, The Program welcomes candidates who are open to controversial dialogue and who seek to challenge their respective practices.

With this in mind, there is no exhibition or paper presentations which conclude the program. Rather, participants are highly encouraged to produce – on their own – a static or non-static material with what is learned, or unlearned, during and after The Program. Please note that the Program is not for everyone. Applicants are encouraged to study and fully understand the mission of the Program and speak with alumni regarding the Program’s structure and expectations of its participants.

Origins

The Art & Law Residency, the first residency of its kind, was founded by Sergio Muñoz Sarmientio in 2010. The Program has emerged as a reflection of his experience at Cornell Law School, CalArts, and the Whitney Independent Study Program, and merges or responds to the discourses of each of these spaces. We now look forward to welcoming the seventh class to The Program in 2016.

Donate

The Art & Law Program is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Contributions for the purposes of Art & Law Program are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. If you would like to donate to the Art & Law Program, you may do so online here.

3 Sundays for Robert Seydel and Closing of “Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter” at the Queens Museum

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I’m honored and a bit humbled to be speaking Sunday September 27 at the Queens Museum for the closing of the exhibition “Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter” at the Queens Museum. I’ll be talking about Robert’s work and the work of Seth Siegelaub, two of my most influential mentors, and two of the most inspiring living libraries…

Many other excellent folks will be presenting too. Thank you to Nathaniel Otting for inviting me.

“Journal Page, 6.10” by Robert Seydel, n.d. from A Picture Is Always a Book: Further Writings from Book of Ruth (Siglio and Smith College Libraries, 2014). © the Estate of Robert Seydel.

“Quail rise”: “R’s Queens” Reprised
ROW / SEW: 3 Sundays for Robert Seydel

Sep 27 2015
3:00pm–5:00pm

“ROW / SEW: 3 Sundays for Robert Seydel” is a series of gatherings of artists and writers to address, to read, to perform, to pay homage to the life and work of Robert Seydel, his alter ego Ruth Greisman, and her friends Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, et al. to complement the exhibition Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter. The series is organized by Emmy Catedral with Nathaniel Otting in conjunction with Siglio and Ugly Duckling Presse.

My name & time: a Queens of the mind.
There’s an occult meaning in initials.

“Read in splendour” between these two lines from Robert Seydel‘s Book of Ruth (Siglio, 2011), this restaging of a scene from last year’s Eterniday event features Renee Gladman, Ross Simonini, and Jane Carver. Proceeding from the “occult meaning in initials,” the afternoon includes short readings from (and for) Seydel’s Songs of S (Siglio | Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015) by Stefani Barber, Sarah Wang, Simone Kearney, Shanxing Wang, Sophie Seita, Sarah Jane Stoner, and Simone White. With opening and closing ceremonies by Andre Bradley (on initials) and Lauren van Haaften-Schick (on Seth Siegelaub).

Other events in the “ROW / SEW: 3 Sundays for Robert Seydel” series:

Jul 26: Art a Grammar, Grammar a House: A Gathering (or, Artist-Writers: A Weaving)
Aug 16: Plaid Duchamp Record in Magenta

 

The Experimental Television Center: A History, Etc – Hunter College 205 Hudson Street Gallery Opening September 24, 7-9pm

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The Experimental Television Center: A History, Etc . . .
At the Hunter College 205 Hudson Street Gallery
Opening October 24, 7-9pm

Analog control box documentation, Richard Brewster, 1980. Courtesy Experimental Television Center and the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University.

Analog control box documentation, Richard Brewster, 1980. Courtesy Experimental Television Center and the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University.

This summer I contributed to a major archival effort to identify and process materials for this exhibition, and the acquisition of the Experimental Television Center Archives by the Rose Goldsen Library & Archives at Cornell University. Lots of amazing history on artist-run spaces and video art in NY State.

The Experimental Television Center: A History, Etc . . .
September 25–November 21, 2015
Opening: September 24, 7–9pm
Hunter College 205 Hudson Street Gallery 
Hunter College MFA Campus, New York
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 1–6pm
www.hunter.cuny.edu
goldsen.library.cornell.edu
www.experimentaltvcenter.org

For over 40 years, the Experimental Television Center (ETC) in Owego, New York was one of North America’s preeminent organizations for video art, fostering a community for creativity and innovation through its residency and tool-building programs. The Experimental Television Center: A History, Etc . . . is the first academic survey of the Center’s prolific yet under-recognized role in the evolution of video art. Through works of art, ephemera, and video processing tools, this exhibition maps the ETC’s influence within the larger narrative of the history of video into the digital and internet age. 

From 1971 to 2011, over 1,500 artists participated in the ETC residency program, which functioned as a site for exploration, education, and practice for media artists. This exhibition spans works from the 1960s through the 2000s, including a collection of original analog instruments designed by artists/technologists, as well as two interactive installations featuring contemporary tools designed by Dave Jones, a long-time collaborator with ETC, and Jason and Debora Bernagozzi, founders of the new media organization Signal Culture in Owego, New York.

Organized by: Sarah Watson, Chief Curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries; Timothy Murray, Curator of the Rose Golden Archive of New Media Art; and Sherry Miller Hocking, Assistant Director of the Experimental Television Center. 

The Artist’s Resale Right at Artists Space

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The Artist’s Resale Right
Presentations & Discussion

Artists Space Books & Talks
Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 7pm

resale royalty

In light of recent action at the congressional level concerning artists’ resale rights, this event will provide a public forum for discussion around the proposed legislation of secondary market art sales in the US, and will locate these developments in relation to historical and international precedents and alternative models. 

In 2014 and 2015 Congressman Jerrold Nadler (Democrat, 10th District of New York) introduced into congress theAmerican Royalties Too Act, or ART Act, which would grant visual artists a resale right enabling them to collect a percentage of any works re-sold for a profit at public auctions over a value of $5000. While there have been many previous unsuccessful attempts to pass such legislation in the US, this current bill brings with it indications of a potentially different outcome: the Copyright Office recommended in a 2013 report that a federal resale royalty for visual artists should be adopted, this past May the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld portions of the California Resale Royalty Act concerning in-state sales of visual artworks, and this month the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) announced that they will discuss visual artists’ resale rights in December 2015.

In order to stimulate discussion, and to ask what artists and the broader art community might want—or not want—from such legislation, this event brings together speakers from backgrounds in art, art history, and law for a series of presentations and discussions. Dr. Theodore Feder and Janet Hicks of the Artists Rights Society will outline the ART Act and the work they have done lobbying for the bill, followed by curator and art historian Lauren van Haaften-Schick, who will provide a historical perspective concerning artists’ contracts and the legal history of art in the US. These presentations will be followed by a discussion between art dealer Maxwell Graham, artists Hans Haacke and R. H. Quaytman, and Justice Barbara Jaffe, New York Supreme Court, New York County, moderated by van Haaften-Schick.

The evening will conclude with an open floor debate, at which all present are welcome to share thoughts and experiences. Even if the 2015 congressional session does not vote on the bill, or if it fails to pass, the recurrent interest in the issue of resale rights for artists merits greater involvement and consideration of the issue from those who stand to be impacted most—artists.

This event is the first in a series organized by the recently formed W.A.G.E. Artists’ Resale Rights Working Group:
Richard Birkett
April Britski
Maxwell Graham
Leah Pires
Cameron Rowland
Lise Soskolne
Lauren van Haaften-Schick

Non-Participation at the Luminary, St Louis, Opening June 27

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Non-Participation

June 27 – August 8, 2014
The Luminary Center for the Arts
2701 Cherokee, St. Louis, MO

 

Non-Participation is an in-progress collection of letters written by artists and others in which they refuse to take part in cultural events for various political and ethical reasons.

The first public presentation of the ongoing project will take place at the Luminary Center for the Arts in St. Louis, from June 27 – August 8, 2014. The exhibition follows a residency at the Luminary during the last two weeks of June.

I am still actively taking submissions of letters, which may be sent tolauren@laurenvhs.com.

The call for submissions follows.

More info at laurenvhs.com

 

 

Call for Submissions

Non-Participation is an on-going collection of letters written by artists, writers, musicians, curators, and other cultural producers, in which they decline opportunities to participate in cultural events, such as exhibitions and performances, for various political and ethical reasons. These statements serve as evidence that the artist may act with agency, and is not beholden to the terms of an institution. They also pose a positive alternative to a ubiquitous pressure to perform, and state cases for the legitimacy of art-work as a real and remunerable form of labor. At the core of the project is the notion that what we say “no” to is perhaps more important than what we agree to.

Examples of such letters include: The artist collective YAMS’ withdrawal from the 2014 Whitney Biennial on grounds that the Museum perpetuates racism within the institutional art world; the withdrawal of John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Catherine Opie and Ed Ruscha from the board of trustees of LA MoCA in response to the leadership of Jeffrey Deitch and the exit of curator Paul Schimmel; Artist Michael Rakowitz’s refusal of an invitation to create a commissioned work for the Spertus in Chicago, after they had pre-maturely closed a show on contemporary and historic interpretations of mapping the Israel Palestine region; and a heavily annotated and criticized request received by the artist activist group Working Artists for the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) for their participation in a major exhibit for which no artist fees or support of any kind was offered by the organizer.

I am now collecting your letters of non-participation, which will be compiled as a publication and online archive, with additional exhibitions and events to be announced.

Please send copies of your letters via email to lauren@laurenvhs.com.

With your submission, please indicate whether or not you wish to remain anonymous. All names and contact information can be omitted or made public.

Each letter will be accompanied by a factual account of the incident and/or any other relevant information that could illuminate the situation, as you see fit.
There is currently no deadline for submissions.

Thank you in advance.

Lauren van Haaften-Schick

 

The Luminary Center for the Arts

 

 

Valuing Labor in the Arts: Response

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Now on Artpractical.com: A wrap-up and response article by Patricia Maloney on Gauging the Gray Area, a workshop organized by myself and Helena Keeffe for “Valuing Labor in the Arts” at the Arts Research Center, UC Berkeley:

Valuing Labor in the Arts – Response: Negotiating Terms and Setting Precedents

By Patricia Maloney May 22, 2014

On April 19, 2014, the Arts Research Center hosted Valuing Labor in the Arts: A Practicum. This daylong event included a series of artist-led workshops that developed exercises, prompts, or actions that engage questions of art, labor, and economics.

Patricia Maloney participated in the “Gauging the Gray Area: Standards for Artistic Labor” workshop at the Valuing Labor in the Arts practicum and was commissioned to write this response….

 

One of the participants in the workshop, choreographer and Berkeley PhD student Sara Wilbur  also came up with a great dance-focused response to the project. Amazing!

 

You can download our Gauging the Grey Area broadside here.

 

 

“Gauging the Gray Area: Standards for Artistic Labor,” Valuing Labor in the Arts at UC Berkeley

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Last weekend I presented a workshop with Helena Keeffe for the practicum Valuing Labor in the Arts, presented by the Arts Resource Center at UC Berkeley. It was a big experiment for both of us, and proved very productive for both the facilitators and workshop participants, as the workshop structure opened up new ways for us to talk about difficult personal, ethical and economic questions as group.

Below is a description of our workshop. Descriptions for the full day of events available at Art Practical, to be followed by reflections on the day, and a pdf of the document our workshop collectively produced.

Image credit: Michele Bock

Gauging the Gray Area: Standards for Artistic Labor
Helena Keeffe and Lauren van Haaften-Schick

When is it okay to work for free? Why is remuneration a concern for artists and arts workers? What perpetuates the devaluation of artistic labor? How have artists confronted these challenges? Can we devise a scheme for artists to follow during negotiations for compensation? Is it possible to create a shared standard of artist needs?

Artistic labor is often assumed to be unquantifiable, difficult to define, existing solely within a gift economy. At the same time, we live in the era of the presumed professional artist, in which art practitioners are expected to be hyper-performers, on the clock, and giving it all for the promise of exposure. Both assumptions about art work have positive aspects: a gift economy encourages collectivity and mutual exchange while the professionalization of the arts presumably elevates the artist to a more respected role in society. Yet the collision of these contradicting assumptions has instead cast artists as precarious workers, in which they are expected to give and to perform endlessly without any established standards for remuneration.

The workshop “Gauging the Gray Area: Standards for Artistic Labor” consists of a conversation and exercise through which participants will consider the ways that we value our artistic labor and attempt to formulate a set of standards for answering the above questions in our professional and daily lives. We will discuss examples of artists who have refused work for the lack of payment and who have turned these conflicts into opportunities for teaching or encouraging change. We will consider tools that artists have devised to evaluate situations: when to work for free, when to demand more, and how to better define the myriad gray areas of artistic work. Such tools include Helena Keeffe’s project Standard Deviation, Jessica Hische’s Should I Work for Free?, Lauren van Haaften-Schick’s Non-Participation, data collected by WAGE and CARFAC, and legal tools such as Seth Siegelaub’s Artists Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement. Workshop participants will discuss their experiences with such negotiations and will be asked to formulate their own standards for when and why to say yes or no to unpaid—and sometimes paid—art work.

At the conclusion of the workshop, we will devise a tiered system of standards for determining whether or not to accept paid and unpaid work within the arts, taking into consideration the personal, social, and practical circumstances behind each decision. Rather than seek a collective standard, we will recognize that personal needs and ethics regarding payment for artistic labor will vary among participants. Our considerations and conclusions will be printed as a broadside for conference attendees to take with them and reproduce or edit for themselves. We hope that this broadside will not only be the spark of many future conversations, but will begin to be used as a concrete tool among artists for measuring the value of their work.

 

 

Living Labor: Marxism and Performance Studies conference

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I’m pleased to announce my participation in the conference Living Labor: Living Labor: Marxism and Performance Studies at NYU on April 12, 2014.

I’ll be presenting on the origin and use of Seth Siegelaub’s Artist’s Reserved Rights and Transfer of Sale Agreement, and the notion of critical circulation.

Panel information:

ART & THE MARKETPLACE (3:00PM – 4:45PM)

“If you give me your time, I’ll give you experience”: The Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI) and the Value Theory of Labor
Samara Davis (New York University)

Field Notes from an Ethnography of Manhattan Marxism
Steve Lyons (Concordia University)

Live Matter, Hidden Labor: Rethinking the Silent Presence of the Other in Contemporary Art
Jimena Ortuzar (University of Toronto)

Siegelaub’s Agreement as Critical Circulation
Lauren van Haaften-Schick (Independent Curator)

 

 

Living Labor: Marxism and Performance Studies
April 11 – 13, 2014
Performance Studies, NYU
Keynote Address by Professor Fred Moten and Sianne Ngai

Living Labor: Marxism and Performance Studies is an interdisciplinary graduate student conference being organized at the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, and will take place April 11th-14th 2014.