In a re-release of last June's episode, Katie and Steve speak (again) with digital art and NFT enthusiast Jason Bailey about the sudden rise of NFTs in the art world, what they really are, why they have value, and who is interested in them and why. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2022/01/10/skepticism-and-optimism-around-art-nfts-revisited/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artlawpodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@artlawpodcast...
Jan 10, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Katie and Steve speak with veteran cultural property and art lawyer, Tom Kline, about his representation of Christie’s and Michael Steinhardt in litigation brought by Turkey to possess a millennia-old Anatolian marble statue (the Stargazer) owned by Steinhardt and sold by him through Christie’s. After a trial in the Southern District of New York, Turkey lost for the primary reason that they could not provide facts supporting their claim to ownership of the Stargazer, specifically that it was sto...
Dec 02, 2021•51 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Steve and Katie talk to Susan Mumford and Chris King, co-founders of ArtAML, about the recent roll out of AML regulations covering art market participants in the United Kingdom, who is implicated, how they can comply, and what this means for art businesses and the culture of secrecy in the art market generally. The requirement to determine and seek documentation of the ultimate beneficial owner on each end of the transaction is something financial institutions have long done, but not art dealers...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Katie and Steve speak (again) with digital art and NFT enthusiast Jason Bailey about the sudden rise of NFTs in the art world, what they really are, why they have value, and who is interested in them and why. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2021/06/02/skepticism-and-optimism-around-art-nfts/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artlawpodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@artlawpodcast...
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Katie and Steve finally tackle the evolving area of fair use as a defense to copyright infringement with Luke Nikas, attorney for the Andy Warhol Foundation and Partner at Quinn Emanuel. Luke represents the Foundation in its ongoing litigation with photographer Lynn Goldsmith about Warhol’s use of Goldsmith’s photograph of the artist Prince as an artist study for a series of screen prints. Goldsmith claims Warhol infringed her copyright in the original photograph. The Warhol Foundation says Warh...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Steve and Katie speak with legal scholar Mira Sundara Rajan regarding the international landscape for artist moral rights protections, including the adoption of moral rights laws in the developing world, common law versus civil law jurisdictions, and the connection between moral rights and cultural heritage concerns. Steve, Katie, and Mira dive into two case studies: the Indian case Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India (2005) involving government removal of and damage to famous murals from a gover...
Mar 29, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Steve and Katie speak with British art lawyer and General Counsel of Phillips auction house Martin Wilson about European anti-money laundering regulations applicable to art market participants and their recent implementation in the UK. Generally, these regulations require art dealers, galleries, and auction houses to register with the government and undertake due diligence on every art transaction over a certain threshold amount, including with respect to the identity of all ultimate beneficial ...
Mar 05, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Steve and Katie end 2020 with a few updates on past podcast episode topics, including 5Pointz and moral rights litigation, the Painted Bride mosaic mural battle, deaccessioning in Baltimore, and pandemic related litigation. We look forward to many more interesting topics in 2021! Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2021/01/08/goodbye-2020-and-some-art-law-updates/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artlawpodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@artlawpod...
Jan 08, 2021•47 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Steve and Katie discuss the recent deaccessioning controversies at the Brooklyn Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Everson Museum of Art in light of the ethical guidelines, new AAMD guidance, and the economic and social climate. They also discuss the recent postponement of the Philip Guston retrospective at the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston due to its depiction of white nationalism and the criticisms of that decision. Please note the...
Oct 29, 2020•47 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Steve and Katie speak with old master art dealer and scholar Robert Simon about his discovery of the painting Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and sold by Christie’s in 2017 for almost half a billion dollars. They discuss Simon’s purchase of the painting from an obscure New Orleans auction house, the painting’s painstaking restoration and scholarly review, and what we know and don’t know about its history over the last 500 years. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/202...
Sep 14, 2020•58 min•Season 3Ep. 10
We are re-releasing our podcast with journalist and author Ben Lewis in anticipation of our forthcoming discussion with Robert Simon. We talked with Ben in depth about his book, The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting , about the history and ultimate sale by Christie’s auction house in November 2017 for just over $450.3 million of the painting Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci. Our next episode with Robert Simon will revisit this story from a diffe...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Katie and Steve speak with Michael Weinberg, the Executive Director of the Engelberg Center of Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law School, about 3D digitization of gallery, library, archive and museum (“GLAM”) institution collections, the goals and motivations for such projects, and how digitization implicates (or doesn’t) rightsholders. They also discuss the open access framework in which these digitization projects occur, the difference between 2D and 3D copying, and the legal and ethical fra...
Aug 03, 2020•55 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Katie and Steve speak with Jay Sanders, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Artists Space, a vanguard artist-centered arts nonprofit, founded in 1972 and located in New York City, about the devastating impact of the pandemic shutdown on small arts nonprofits, as well as the inspiration and community being cultivated in this moment of hardship. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2020/06/01/arts-nonprofits-in-the-pandemic/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagr...
Jun 01, 2020•44 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Katie and Steve welcome back to the podcast museum director, art commentator, and art historian Max Anderson to discuss what art museums (now closed) are dealing with during the Covid-19 crisis in terms of mission, funding, audience engagement and an uncertain future. They discuss structural issues and practices pre-existing the pandemic that put pressure on museums’ stated missions and appeal, as well as potential shifts in focus and priority that may come out of this current moment of reorgani...
May 11, 2020•58 min•Season 3Ep. 6
In this bonus episode, Steve analyzes the recent Second Circuit decision affirming the 2018 decision awarding $6.75 million to the artists of 5Pointz, whose works were whitewashed and torn down by the building’s owner in 2013. To put this important decision into a broader context, we have re-released our April 2018 episode on 5Pointz, where we discuss the district court case in which the aerosol artists asserted violations of their moral rights under the Visual Artist Rights Act, the U.S. moral ...
Mar 02, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 3Ep. 5
This month, we are updating and rereleasing one of our most popular episodes, Art of the Chase: Inside Art Auctions. In this episode, we take a close look at art auctions – how they work, their place in the art market and the rules and regulations that confine/define them. Auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s now regularly net tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars for a single work. Christie’s sold Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting for $450 million in 2017, still, by far, ...
Dec 02, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Steve and Katie discuss two recent art world controversies involving small, local nonprofits seeking to raise money through asset divestment. The di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa Valley is attempting to deaccession most of its permanent collection of Bay Area art works in the face of vocal art world opposition. In Philadelphia, the proposed sale of the Painted Bride Art Center building by the organization’s board, including its one of a kind mosaic mural façade, has raised public prot...
Nov 05, 2019•42 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Steve and Katie have a wide ranging conversation with art historian and former lawyer, Joan Kee, about the topic of her new book, Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America. Their conversation probes artists’ embrace and rejection of legal structures in contemporary America, as well as artistic indifference about and dependence on the law. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2019/10/01/how-artists-mess-with-the-law/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.ins...
Oct 01, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 2
CORRECTION: After the recording of this podcast, the San Francisco School Board, in the face of community protest, reconsidered its decision to remove the George Washington murals from George Washington High School and will instead cover them. Against the backdrop of global museums distancing themselves from the Sackler name, two highly controversial Whitney Biennials involving activist calls for the destruction and removal of an artwork and, more recently, calls for the resignation of a Board m...
Sep 04, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Steve and Katie talk about and compare two recent Holocaust-era art cases decided in New York, one in state court on summary judgment and one in federal court on a motion to dismiss grounds. Both cases involve the claims of heirs to recover artwork that left the hands of Jewish owners persecuted by the Nazis, but they otherwise greatly differ. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2019/08/05/recent-new-york-holocaust-era-art-cases-come-out-differently/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Insta...
Aug 05, 2019•42 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Katie and Steve talk with Ben Lewis, author of the new book, The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting , about the history and ultimate sale by Christie’s auction house in November 2017 of the painting Salvator Mundi which they attribute to Leonardo Da Vinci for just over $450.3 million. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2019/07/01/the-last-leonardo-with-ben-lewis/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artlawpodcast/ TikTo...
Jul 01, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Katie and Steve speak with Laura Patten and Michael Shepard about financial crimes, including money laundering, involving art. They discuss high profile examples of art-related financial crime, the reality and challenges of compliance for galleries, dealers and other art market participants, and the regulatory landscape in the U.S. and Europe. Laura formerly worked with the CIA and FBI on high stakes art crime investigations. Michael has worked for years on anti-money laundering and financial cr...
Apr 23, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 7
In this episode of the podcast, Steve and Katie are in conversation with Jason Bailey, the founder of the Artnome blog and host of the Dank Rares blockchain art podcast about technology and fine art. With a background in art and tech, Jason is one of the foremost authorities on art and technology. The conversation with Jason is wide-ranging from blockchain, provenance, smart contracts, digital art, cryptocurrency, blockchain-driven auctions, privacy, and generative art. Notes for this episode: h...
Mar 04, 2019•57 min•Season 2Ep. 6
This month Katie and Steve talk about a few important art law cases from 2018 ranging from Nazi looting, to Italian fisherman discovering an ancient Greek statue, to the risks catalogue raisonné committees face when offering even indirect opinions on authenticity. The specific cases discussed are Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena , No. 16-56308 (9 th Cir. 2018); the Getty Bronze case decided by the Italian Court of Cassation; and Mayor Gallery Ltd. v. The Agnes Martin Catalogue...
Feb 06, 2019•47 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Katie and Steve speak with Nanne Dekking, the founder and CEO of Artory and Chairman of the European Fine Art Fair, about Artory’s efforts to use blockchain to create a transparent registry of art sales, the general challenges to transparency in the fine art market, the problem of detecting fakes and forgeries and trustworthy counterparties, and blockchain’s limitations. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2019/01/07/the-promise-of-blockchain-transparency-in-the-art-market/ Follow t...
Jan 07, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Katie and Steve speak with Philip Hoffman, founder and CEO of The Fine Art Group, about art funds, art financing, and financial guarantees of auctions sales. They also explore how art is performing as an asset class. Philip started the first “art fund” in 2002, and he is one of the world’s leading experts on the financialization of art. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2018/12/03/the-financialization-of-art-with-philip-hoffman/ Follow the Art Law Podcast Instagram: https://www.in...
Dec 03, 2018•56 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Artist Aviva Rahmani speaks to Steve and Katie about her artistic practice investigating and using the law. Her current work, Blued Trees Symphony , is a musical and visual art work installed along miles of proposed pipeline expansion on land subject to possible eminent domain. Rahmani has copyrighted the work and plans to use the Visual Artist Rights Act to prevent the art’s destruction, thereby frustrating the building of pipeline. Notes for this episode: http://artlawpodcast.com/2018/11/08/ar...
Nov 08, 2018•30 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Katie and Steve get an update from attorney Nicholas O’Donnell about the status of the lawsuit he brought on behalf of certain members of the Berkshire Museum for breach of fiduciary duty, among other claims, in relation to the Museum’s sale of much of its valuable art collection to pay for operating and capital expenses. While much of the art has been sold, the members fight on. Nick explains the unusual posture of the case to our listeners. *Note: On Monday, the Massachusetts Appeals Court end...
Oct 02, 2018•10 min
Steve and Katie discuss the Nazis’ complicated and perverse relationship with fine art with attorney and author Nicholas O’Donnell. Nick is the author of the recent book, A Tragic Fate: Law and Ethics in the Battle Over Nazi-Looted Art , which tells the story of stolen and appropriated art in World War II Europe and how the U.S. legal system has been instrumental in dealing with claims for restitution decades later. Steve, Katie and Nick start with the historical landscape in 1930s Europe, and d...
Oct 01, 2018•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 1
On this bonus episode, Katie and Steve discuss the recent SCOTUS case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. ___ (2018). In this case, a baker claimed his First Amendment free exercise and free speech rights were violated when he was found in violation of a Colorado statute prohibiting disparate treatment based on sexual orientation in public accommodations for refusing to make and sell a wedding cake to a gay couple. The baker refused to make the wedding cake because...
Jul 27, 2018•25 min
