Art, the Art Community, and the Law

Marcia Sweet, formerly head of the Douglas Library’s
Information/Reference Unit at Queen’s University, is currently an
Ottawa-based information consultant and freelance editor.

This is a short but comprehensive guide to the law for everyone involved
in the visual arts: artists and their assistants, donors, dealers,
collectors, and others. The intention of the authors was to create a
primer on “the business of being an artist” to help artists maximize
their income. Their instructive book shows artists that being successful
involves marketing, promoting, and inventorying one’s work; keeping
accurate records; and writing good contracts.

The book discusses records management for corporate and private
collectors. It provides collectors with guidelines for hiring a
consultant. It discusses income and sales taxes, estate planning,
cultural property repatriation, appraisals, obscenity law, and
copyright. It deals with photography, crafts, multimedia works and
installations, artist collectives, and computer-based works. The editor
has done an excellent job of choosing appropriate subject matter,
selecting knowledgable writers, and using clear language to convey the
information.

Where there are several viewpoints, as in the discussion of the
artist-dealer relationship, the book describes each. Copyright, long a
murky area, is discussed with authority and clarity. Unlike the authors
in many other books of this type, the authors in this volume take
responsibility for their opinions and do not constantly instruct the
reader to consult another authority. Each idea is illustrated with a
current and often well-known Canadian example, which expands our
understanding of the particular as well as the general. As might be
expected of a book dealing with laws and intellectual property, the
authors are scrupulous in giving credit to the students and researchers
who helped put the book together. Although the book lacks an index, it
has a detailed and useful table of contents. Art, the Art Community, and
the Law is a valuable reference tool for every person engaged in the
visual-arts business.