The ICOM Code
A new series of professional development courses aimed at mid-career curators and museum professionals was recently launched by Whitechapel Gallery in partnership with the Art Fund. Under the portfoli …
When Collaborators Turn
Marina Abramović is being sued for breach of contract by her former artistic collaborator Ulay over works they jointly created when working and living together in Amsterdam for a dozen years: Relation …
Moral Lights
Appropriation – without a capital ‘a’ – of images by artists has been common practice throughout art history. Artists whose images are appropriated can and do use national and international copyright …
Film and Video
The Whitechapel Gallery’s current survey show ‘Electronic Superhighway 2016-1966’, is a reflection of the extent to which digital media are now being used by increasing numbers of visual artists, espe …
Conservation
Deterioration and degradation of contemporary art increasingly concerns specialists in the field of conservation and restoration. Such experts are being asked for advice and assistance from key actors …
Taking Care of Business
Damien Hirst’s autobiography will be published by Viking Penguin in Autumn 2015. When recently announcing the deal, the publishers promised that Hirst will ‘lay bare the modern art world’. The book wi …
Suing Art Experts
Last month’s consideration of art after death suggested that artists might adopt straightforward and sensible practices to authenticate and inventorise their works, to avoid difficulty and complicatio …
Material Ephemerality
Works made from short-life materials used by modern and contemporary artists increasingly pose problems and challenges for those who handle or possess works: collectors, estates and foundations, conse …
Why are Artists Poor?
Borrowing the title of Hans Abbing’s important sociological interrogation of contemporary art practice from 2007, let us consider a case in point. A young unknown artist relocated 30-odd kilometres no …
Who Owns Street Art
A Banksy-style rat holding a sign asking ‘Why?’ was recently stencilled on the wall outside a London shop from which the Banksy-attributed mural Slave Labour had been hacked away a few weeks earlier. …