The Laws of Art: Modern Art on Trial

This lecture explores how modern art's clashes with legal boundaries over tax, copyright, and offense reveal the true nature of art.
About this Event

Merchant Adventurers' Arts Discovery Lecture

Modern art, as it developed in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, was based on concepts of creative freedom and continuous innovation. Whatever standards for art or limits to expression had been set in the past, artists of that moment felt almost obliged to test them to prove the authenticity of their art works.
Unsurprisingly, this led on occasion to disputes and to the discussion of art by lawyers, courts and judges, all seemingly ill-equipped to understand such new forms of expression. This lecture will use some notable cases to consider the question of modern art’s exceptionality. Do these moments where challenging forms of artistic expression have confronted legal boundaries tell us anything more than simply how attitudes to art change over time? Do they reveal something about the nature of art itself?
The cases considered involve a range of legal scenarios, including: the objective status of artworks for tax purposes, the contestation of originality in connection to copyright, art works deemed offensive and contractual disputes between artists and patrons.

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