It’s back, like a double-edged dagger — an éperon — Nietzsche style.  Back by popular demand, and now going on its third year, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts‘ legendary, ground-breaking, and no-holds-barred educational series for visual artists.

“Informative, thought-provoking, enlightening, sensical. These things should be taught in art school, but I’m glad I learned them here!” notes one artist. “Pure deliciousness. Challenging, spicy, enlightening,” notes another. Read (and see) what other past participants have said here.

Although fees are now attached, artists can register for individual classes or the entire series. Course starts March 20, 2012

Law School for Visual Artists

Topics that will be covered during the 5-week course:

Tuesday March 20, 2012
Introduction:
• Legal Hypothetical: Analyzing legal issues in your art projects

Tuesday March 27, 2012
• Basic business models (non-profit and for-profit corporations, LLC’s)
• Fiscal Sponsorships
• Employment issues
A. Studio and gallery assistants
B. Working as a preparator for art galleries

Tuesday April 3, 2012
• Free Speech
• Right of Privacy

Tuesday April 10, 2012
Contracts
• Consignment Agreements
• Licensing Agreements
• Commissioning Agreements

Tuesday April 17, 2012
• Intellectual Property (copyright and trademarks)

Click here to register for this course (or just one or two classes).

Problem? Students surf the web too much.

The Guardian has re-published the original news article concerning the theft and finding of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa back in the early 20th Century. The original news article was published in the Manchester Guardian on December 15, 1913.

In his new book, The Art-Architecture Complex, Princeton art history professor and October commandant Hal Foster examines how architecture seems more like art, and art like architecture, than ever before, and how this is not a good thing.

Iona Harding and Emily Sweetland, both Baker & McKenzie LLP associates, review Mira T. Sundara Rajan’s new book, Moral Rights: Principles, Practice and New Technology. Here’s a snippet of the review, via the 1709 blog:

To some it may seem that moral rights have become irrelevant in the digital age, where there is more distance than ever between the author and his work. Mira Rajan’s view is that the fact that moral rights have become more difficult to enforce in practice does not mean that they are no longer relevant. However, the book reveals that moral rights are fundamentally a cultural phenomenon, a concept which is enormously dependent on the social value attributed to the author of a work and which cannot easily be codified.

Moral Rights: Principles, Practice and New Technology is published by Oxford University Press, and runs a hefty $150.00

Upcoming event at The International Foundation for Art Reasearch (according to website, it is fully booked):

The Art & Law Residency Exhibition, Notice of Public Hearing, will take place at SculptureCenter in Long Island City, New York. The Residency Exhibition will highlight projects created during the 2011 Art & Law Residency Program. The projects engage issues of law in relation to property, land use, intellectual property, commodities, language, national security, risk, privacy, and criminality. The Art & Law Residency and Exhibition are programs of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

Exhibition
December 8 – December 19, 2011

Artists
Michael Cataldi
Blane De St. Croix
Molly Dilworth
Carolyn Lambert
Graham Parker
Risa Puno
Lian Amaris
Woody Sullender
Alex Villar

Opening Reception
Thursday, December 8, 2011
7 – 8:30pm

SculptureCenter
4419 Purves Street
Long Island City, NY 11101

2 Subway stops from Manhattan:
E or M to Court Square

Gallery Hours
Thursday – Monday, 11am – 6pm
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

A professor’s nude photographs that show him posing with students and faculty are causing controversy.

Artist Danny Guthrie is an associate professor at Michigan State University. According to The Detroit News, Guthrie “does not recruit currently enrolled students. Those who participate do so voluntarily, determine the extent of their involvement and approve the final photographs.”

Michigan State supports Guthrie. “Sometimes art, and the means by which it is expressed, evokes strong responses — both for and against it,” Heather Swain, interim vice president for university relations, said in a statement. “In situations where the art relates to an academic activity, MSU’s main concern is to maintain the integrity of the teaching and learning environment.”

What does Guthrie have to say about this controversy?

“I have reached a not entirely pleasant place in life one might call the fulcrum of middle age, with the balance shifting inexorably towards decrepitude,” Guthrie said in his statement on MSU’s website.”As one ages, it is with no small sense of remorse and regret that one comes to experience the realm of desire, romance, and carnality as existing more in the past than the future.”

One can’t help but think of Guthrie’s work as a beautiful illustration of Philip Roth’s, The Dying Animal. Some of Guthrie’s more “innocent” photos may be viewed here, while some with nudity may be viewed here and here.

Interesting two-day law and visual culture symposium at New York Law School next week. We highly recommend hearing Amy Adler, NYU Professor of Law, and W.J.T. Mitchell, Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago.

More info here.

Joshua Knelman spent four years inside the international black market for stolen art, a market that fuels organized crime and one in which Canada plays a prominent role. He chronicles the results of his insider investigation in his new book Hot Art.

Via CBC Books.