Welcome

Welcome to Art Law for Spring semester 2011. Generally, we will meet on Monday afternoons from 2.40-4.20pm for lectures. We will not meet every Tuesday. Instead we will meet on approximately four Tuesdays to view films for the course. In addition, we will have field trips to the Kansas History Museum in Topeka and the Spencer Art Museum on campus. We will also visit one other museum. Dates for the field trips will be set later in the semester.

Requirements for the course will be as follows:

1. A short-answer midterm [30 points]

2. A short essay on provenance of a selected work [10 points]

3. A short essay on an auction visit [10 points]

4. A take-home essay final examination [50 points]

The topics we will discuss during the semester:

1. Legal definitions of art

2. Offensive art

3. Legal issues involving artists including moral rights [droit moral]

4. Legal issues involving museums & collectors

5. Reproduction, authenticity, & value

6. Art theft

Readings will be posted on this blog for each topic weekly.

The first reading for the course will be the transcript of the Brancusi trial. The text is no longer available for sale so you will need to read the assignment in the two copies I have placed on reserve in the law library.