• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Art and Law

Module description

Art and Law is a course that examines how art engages with and is influenced by a breadth of legal areas including but not limited to intellectual property law, cultural heritage law, information law, contract law, criminal law, public international law, and private international law.

Through various sources, both traditional and alternative, you will explore how the law and its intersecting components function (or dysfunction) during the generation of cultural content, especially in an online environment. The ‘reading list’ will include films and documentaries, online articles and exhibitions, social media accounts, and case law and scholarly commentary on emerging issues in art and law. Through innovative teaching and assessment methods, you will develop and strengthen your capacity for analytical, critical, and imaginative thinking, which are essential skills for effective and persuasive argumentation, legal or otherwise.

Students will not be required to have prior knowledge or to have taken any pre-requisites or co-requisites for this module, which is suitable for specialist and non-specialist students and will be particularly useful for students who are interested in developing an interdisciplinary approach to studies. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

• The key aim of the module is to provide you with the opportunity to explore the rich relationship between various areas of law through art, thereby deepening your understanding of the intersections of law in general and especially its impact on cultural and social development.
• The module also aims to provide you with interdisciplinary learning opportunities that will generate rich and stimulating engagements both with the material and peers.
• With a portion of the assessment based on a creative work, the module aims to develop and strengthen your appreciation of how the law filters and facilitates cultural production. The essay component of the assessment criteria aims to enhance critical thinking and creative argumentation skills.
• Throughout the module, you will be challenged to nurture creative and analytical capacities that are particularly valued by employers. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate coherent and advanced knowledge and understanding of the relationship between law and cultural production
• 2. Demonstrate a thorough and critical knowledge and understanding of various areas of law and visual arts scholarship, using a wide range of appropriate concepts, interpretative techniques and terminology
• 3. Think critically and creatively through the production of an artistic output based on the application and critical analysis of relevant law and its practical application

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Exercise critical thinking, judgment, and analysis concerning the assumptions and aspirations of law
• 5. Select and explain relevant information from primary and secondary legal sources using appropriate interpretative techniques
• 6. Engage with legal materials as a critical and creative reader

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Identify, retrieve and use, independently and efficiently, a range of resources with minimum guidance
• 8. Manage time independently and efficiently in preparing for learning activities, to be proactive in developing your own learning, and to work independently within a limited time frame to complete a specified task

Syllabus plan

While the module’s precise content will vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Introduction to Art and Law
• Access to and Reuse of the Public Domain
• Art and Decolonisation
• Art and the Internet
• Art and Appropriation
• Graffiti and the Law
• Performance Art and Law
• Intangible Cultural Heritage
• Indigenous Artifacts and Cultural Content

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Participation mark will not be reassessed. This mark will be carried through from the term.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

• Bielstein S, Permissions: A Survival Guide, Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property (2006)
• Op den Kamp C and Hunter S, A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects (2019)
• Reilly M, Curatorial Activism (2018)
• Risam R, New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Prais, and Pedagogy (2019)
• Sarr F and Savoy B, ‘The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage, Toward a New Relational Ethics’ (2018)
• Schubert K and McClean D, Dear Images: Art, Copyright and Cultrue (1999)
• Sharpe C, In the Wake (2016)
• Stokes S, Art and Copyright (2012)
• Wallace A and Deazley R, Display At Your Own Risk: An experimental exhibition of digital cultural heritage (2016)

 Exhibitions and Artworks:

• Al-Badri N and Nelles N, The Other Nefertiti (2019)
• Roberts A, No Copyright Infringement Intended (2017)
• Mundy O, I Know Where Your Cat Lives (2014)
• Walker K, Fons Americanus (2019)
• Galanin N, Shadow on the Land, an excavation and bush burial (2020)

Podcasts:

• Hyperallergic / Art Movements, ‘The Relationship Between Art and Law Since the 1960s with Joan Kee’ (2019)
• Hyperallergic / Art Movements, ‘Talking Digital Colonialism with Moreshin Allahyari’ (2019)
• NYU Engelberg Center for Innovation Policy, ‘Why Art Does Not Need Copyright with Amy Adler’ (2008)
• This American Life, ‘We are in the Future: Past Imperfect with Azie Dungey’ (2017)
• Museopunks, ‘Decolonization and its Discontents with Sumaya Kassim and Nathan Mudyi Sentence’ (2019)

 Videos:

• will.i.am, ‘Smile Mona Lisa’ (2016)
• The Carters, ‘APESHIT’ (2018)
• American Alliance of Museums, ‘Keynote Speakers: Donoval Livingston and Frank Waln’ (2018)

Key words search

Art, cultural heritage, innovation