On the Blurring of Art & Law: A Manifesto

The following are epitaphs and birth certificates to thoughts on the practices and philosophies known as art and the law. As with any thought and position of any worth, the following thoughts may disappear, they may be revised or amended, or they may remain. This list is also not conclusive, which is to say, it may grow.

– SERGIO MUÑOZ SARMIENTO

Last Updated: January 5, 2023

1.    There is a crucial and necessary difference between art law and art and law. Art law is what lawyers do: trust and estates, consignments, authentication, intellectual property, artist-gallery disputes, etc. Art law is really no different than divorce law or securities law. It’s law as it applies to the business of art. In art and law the ampersand is crucial because law and art are two radically separate discourses and practices. Art and law looks at the practical, the theoretical and the speculative aspects of these two structures. It’s where artists, art historians and critics engage law and legal scholars study art to further not only their own space but create another new space. And that is possible. In fact, it’s vital and necessary.

2.    Art does not need law. Unfortunately there are some individuals in art that want art to need law.

3.    Art and law may incorporate the obviously political, but this is not necessary and certainly not sufficient. Art and law is not direct. Art and law approaches and attacks where and when least expected.

4.    Art that incorporates law must not be obvious, predictable, boring, or pedantic.

5.    Law in art must also not be symbolic. Art that engages law symbolically makes for very bad art. Don’t make bad art.

6.    Law is material and medium.

7.    Why is law different than art? Law has a force and it must be acknowledged. This force is also its weakness.

8.    Remember, art is still visual.

9.    Do not resist art and law. The more you resist the more your position weakens. Remain flexible.

10. The practice of law is not art. It has no aesthetic component; therefore it cannot be art.

11. Lawyers, law professors and legal professionals should not practice art.

12. The more you study art law the less and less you understand art and law.

13. A young person once asked, “Why is law necessary?” It is not.

14. Those that teach law serve only one purpose. There is a difference between knowing what a hammer is used for and using a hammer. Know that.

15. The market of law and the market of art are very different. Unfortunately, those in art are privileging and preferring the market of law.

16. Artists should generate a practice wholly inconsistent with social, cultural and market restrictions.

17. Art can still be good, even great, especially if it is not overtly political.

18. The best art is about ideas that did not previously exist and that do not comment on or critique anything.

19. Art should not be reflective of anything. Art should just be.

20. Sometimes all it takes is one lesson.

21. It is perfectly fine to feel and think that you are not making art. In fact, it’s a good thing.

22. Art and law integrates the planned with the spontaneous. It also thinks architecturally.

23. Where would art and law go if it were devoid of function?

24. What is function?

25. Regardless of whether you are an artist, teacher, or legal professional, surround yourself with good people. Give them room to improvise. Work with the best.

26. If you teach, teach only those students willing to listen and who embrace rebirth.

27. Do not teach those that are argumentative for arguments sake. They are not students: they are militants, zealots, fanatics.

28. Good art and law encourages expression of a diversity of views. A better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a  better view of the future.

29. Art and law supports new ideas. It helps create and sustain a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, creativity, debate, and inquiry.

30. Art and law is not an academic language or art-speak.

31. Art and law is not a profession.

32. A practitioner of art and law must gather evidence and formulate his or her arguments thoroughly.

33. The fundamental enterprise of art and law is the pursuit of knowledge.

34. Art and law does not espouse a doctrine or ideology; it believes in intellectual pluralism.

35. Nietzsche: “The same eternal story: as soon as a philosophy begins to believe in itself, it must create the entire world in its own image.” Art and law must not believe in itself.

36. A gentle reminder to those in dire straits: Jorge Luis Borges was never awarded the Nobel Prize.

37. An artist’s life and practice must be incompatible with the limits imposed upon them.

38. The obsession with connecting art to the real world will bring about the death of art.

39. “The urge to abstraction is the outcome of a great inner unrest inspired in man by the phenomena of the outside world…We might describe this state as an immense spiritual dread of space.” - Wilhelm Worringer

40. True dissent needs no First Amendment protection.

41. A lion doesn’t slither.