The Artful Jurist

Photographer Spencer Tunick has done it again – this time down under. Mr. Tunick, who’s best known for taking photos of groups of nude people in public places, just added to his portfolio by photographing more than 5,000 nude people in a massive group shot on the steps of the Sydney, Australia, Opera House.

Since he’s been doing this for years, and has received lots of coverage (including one TV news reporter’s much publicized first-hand account of her own participation in a shoot), Mr. Tunick’s particular brand of nude photography isn’t really a “new” thing. But, since we don’t see too many naked people walking around city streets, we all sort of sense that there are still public nudity laws on the books that prohibit that sort of thing. The question then is: Are Mr. Tunick and his mass of uninhibited models breaking the law?

Well, the city of New York thought so back when Rudy Giuliani was mayor. Mr. Tunick was arrested there five times in connection with public nude shoots. He countered with a lawsuit alleging that his First Amendment rights were being violated. The case eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which chose to let stand a lower court ruling in favor of the photographer. It seems the New York laws were a tad overly broad in their scope, and artistic freedom of expression doesn’t crumble under laws that aren’t narrowly tailored to meet a compelling necessity.

With all the ruckus that's been made over the years about the so-called impossible-to-duplicate-in-real-life images of women that grace the magazines and billboards, I'm surprised this proposal didn't originate on this side of "the Pond."

There are legislators in the United Kingdom and France who have proposed that retouched ad photos be required by law to carry warning labels specifically spelling out that the image has been retouched. The rationale behind the proposals has nothing to do with truth in advertising. Rather, it's suggested that young girls should be told that the images featuring those gorgeous feminine creatures they envy, and that make them self conscious, wouldn't be quite so gorgeous if it weren't for the post-production magic that alters the photos.

Now the question is this...What if the photoshopping is used not to enhance the image of the women in the photos but, rather, to enhance the product? Does that still count?

A friend brought up a topic the other day. She said she heard about some law where an artist who sells a work for a relatively small amount of money early in her career can be entitled to a small percentage of the profits if that work is later sold again for a larger sum of money (presumably when the artist has garnered some fame and her work has increased in value). Did my friend hear right?

Yes, she did. It's a legal doctrine known as droit de suite. As you can probably guess from the name, it was originated in France some years ago, and it has been embraced by other European countries.

Here in the United States, though, only California has some form of droit de suite, and it applies only to art that's either sold in California or where the art seller lives there.

Oh, you've just gotta love this story out of the Salt Lake Tribune...

It seems a couple of people in Utah sold an art collector a painting by Andy Warhol that was a 1996 portrait of Matthew Baldwin, one of the famous Baldwin clan of actors. Just two little problems. First, there is no Matthew Baldwin in the famed Baldwin family, and, second, Andy Warhol died in 1987, a full nine years before the date written on the portrait.

I suppose, based on the above information, we could say there's also a third problem—one that's likely to involve some legal troubles for the sellers in this odd transaction. The painting is obviously a fraud. Or, more accurately, the painting really exists, but there's no question any claims that it's a genuine Warhol are, shall we say, a bit exaggerated.

According to the article, the sellers were charged with forgery as well as theft by deception and communications fraud. Does this count as their fifteen minutes of fame?

What is it about the paintings of Edvard Munch that makes them regular targets of art thieves? And, perhaps more importantly, why do these thieves repeatedly manage to successfully steal the Norwegian master's work from the museums that house them?

It made news a few years ago when Munch's classic works, "The Scream" and "Madonna", were pilfered in broad daylight from the Munch museum in Oslo. And that wasn't the first time "The Scream" was stolen, either. Okay, the paintings were eventually recovered. But c'mon! You'd think security would have clamped down pretty tight after the first attempt.

Apparently not tight enough. This past week another Munch was stolen. This time it's a lithograph titled "History." It was stolen when thieves broke a gallery window and just snatched it.

Maybe this is why Munch's most famous work is of a figure who just stands there screaming.