ABSTRACT
What is conceptual art and why should legal scholars care about it? According to self-proclaimed conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, conceptual art is art that consists of ideas, not their realization: ‘In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair’.
But what the hell did he know? LeWitt’s definition of conceptual art fit the work he made. But other conceptual artists made different kinds of conceptual art, and defined it differently. For some conceptual artists, the execution was part of the concept. And for others, execution was irrelevant.
Regardless, I think legal scholars should be interested in conceptual art, because it can help them test the limits of legal doctrines. Conceptual art intentionally frustrates expectations, and in so doing, it highlights our assumptions. In describing and managing the world of human interactions, the law often takes it for granted. Conceptual art makes the world weird and forces us to see it anew. And when we look more closely, sometimes we notice problems that otherwise escaped us.
Accordingly, I’ll use conceptual art as a tool to reflect on both securities regulation and copyright doctrine. Or rather, I’ll use a particular work of conceptual art I created to investigate how administrative agencies responded when they received filings that purported to ask legal questions, but in a way the agency didn’t know how to answer.
Frye, Brian L, Conceptual Copyright (July 19, 2020). South Dakota Law Review, forthcoming.
First posted 2020-08-20 03:38:42
Leave a Reply