You will hear more about this in the next few minutes, but let me set the stage by noting that VARA is intended to give artists some degree of security that their works will not be changed or destroyed without their consent. You’ll see that it turns out to be a faulty security; but, it does place society on notice that these are goals we value. VARA's ostensible purpose is to prevent works of potential cultural and aesthetic significance from falling prey prematurely to the corrosive forces of economic and other potent realities.

Copyright, as most of us know, is a kind of Property Right. But VARA does not create a Property Right. It is different. That is why this session is called "Beyond Copyright." Rather, what VARA does for society, lies outside of the laws that govern the commerce in use of works of art. I suggest that an unstated goal of VARA is to give works a protective period in which they may gain sufficient recognition or acknowledged cultural value so that the law, by itself, is no longer required to insure their preservation. We tend to think of VARA as an artists’ rights act – which it is, of course – but, its ultimate aim, I submit, is to protect society from its own destructive power and insensitivities, and in the process, to increase the chances that the best works will survive. This may sound somewhat Darwinian, but it achieves this complex goal by empowering artists with the right to protect their own works.

As moral rights legislation, VARA may seem handicapped, especially when placed on a world stage where "moral rights" derive from the notion that they spring directly from the artistic personality and belong to the class of what is called "natural rights." In the United States, moral rights legislation severely limits the kinds of works covered; it truncates the amount of time protection endures, and even creates opportunities for patrons to encourage artists (some would say "force") to waive rights granted by law.

Obviously, there are problems and conflicts in all this – hence our topic for today.

==========

I am Robert Baron, chair of the Committee on Intellectual Property of the College Art Association. I mention the Committee (CIP, as we call it) because (as you can tell from the daily news) our work is becoming ever more central to many of the issues that face the constituencies of the College Art Association and is becoming increasingly crucial to our understanding of the values that society places on our scholarly and creative efforts. Work in CIP offers an opportunity to help insure that our efforts (your efforts) proceed without undue restraint. Here is the point of all this: We are always looking for committee members who can bring their unique perspectives and energies to this arena. If our concerns are of interest to you, do try to contact either Marta Teegen of the CAA staff or any member of the Committee to investigate potential committee service.

Information on this session, in lieu of handouts, can be obtained on the Internet, at http://www.studiolo.org/CIP/VARA/CIP-VARA.htm.  More information on the activities of the CAA Intellectual Property Committee may be found on this menu: http://www.pipeline.com/~rabaron/index01.htm.

==========

We are lucky today to have an outstanding selection of panelists – all experts in their own right on the benefits and pitfalls of defining, enacting and enforcing moral rights legislation and on the inherent conflicts that have arisen between the creative act, the tug of economics and the rules of law. We will hear short presentations on some of the issues involved and try to save as much time as possible in our allotted one-and-a-half hours for questions from the audience.

I’m going to introduce our panelists briefly. The web-site has so much more about them and their topics that I feel it serves little purpose to go into detail here. So, here is our plan for today:

Jeff Cunard is a recognized authority on intellectual property issues, and is one of the few attorneys who has actually litigated a VARA case. Jeff is counsel to the College Art Association and is a partner at the law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton. Chris Robinson, an associate at Debevoise and an art historian trained at the Courtauld Institute, will assist him, today.

Jeff will begin by describing the subject matter of VARA legislation as it is defined in US Statute and will offer a few examples of how several of the state laws interact with it.

Patricia Failing, our second panelist, teaches art history at the University of Washington where she heads the Division of Art History and is Acting Director of the School of Art. Patricia teaches on the topics of cultural property, art ethics, and moral rights. She is a member of the CAA intellectual property committee.

Patricia will take over from Jeff by providing an historical perspective on VARA and will lead us into the area of contemporary moral rights principles and issues, focusing on some of the problems encountered in attempting to use moral rights legislation. This will bring us into a discussion of the varieties of moral rights that have been enacted and are still in force under state statutes.

Athena Tacha, who probably needs no introduction, also sits on our IP committee. She is well known for her site-specific public sculptures, one right here in Philadelphia, which integrate tectonics with surrounding landscape elements. A most prolific artist, she brings to this topic a world of practical experience. For nearly thirty years Athena taught sculpture at Oberlin College and is now on the faculty of the University of Maryland at College Park.

Athena will provide the needed real-world context for the previous discussion and will relate how VARA has worked (and doesn’t work) in practice. We will hear about some of her successes in preserving her works, and, alas, some of her failures.

Harriet Senie, our last panelist, is the director of museum studies and a professor of art history at the City College and University of New York. Before then, she was associate director of the Art Museum at Princeton University. A specialist in the confluence of Art, Law and Culture, Harriet’s latest book concerns the controversy surrounding the removal from Foley Square in New York of Richard Serra’s "Tilted Arc."

Harriet will conclude our session by raising some of the larger issues that moral rights legislation brings to our culture. She will show how our society and our laws support and fail to support the works of artists and will ask to what extent artist rights are protected by other legislation – the first amendment, for instance. Just as important, under what circumstances might artists be required to cede their rights.

After Harriet, we will open the floor to questions and discussion.

Return to Main Program Page

Write to Robert Baron: