Center for Art Law

06/12/2026

Join us for an informative guest lecture and pro bono consultations on legacy and estate planning for visual artists.

Calling all visual artists: join the Center for Art Law's Artist Legacy and Estate Planning Clinic for an evening of low-cost consultations with attorneys, tax experts, and other arts professionals with experience in estate and legacy planning.

After a short lecture on a legacy and estate planning topic, attendees with consultation tickets artist will be paired with one of the Center's volunteer professionals (attorneys, appraisers and financial advisors) for a confidential 20-minute consultation. Limited slots are available for the consultation sessions.

🎟️ Grab tickets using the link below!

https://buff.ly/y5j8Aky

06/11/2026

As AI enters all parts of the legal sector, it has also been implemented in Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms. The American Arbitration Association and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution recently introduced the "AI arbitrator" in November 2025.

The process is relatively simple, though it remains reserved for construction cases and subject to the review of a human arbitrator. The tool was created to offer more cost- and time-efficient options. The question remains, if current ADR AI tools can be envisioned in art law disputes, particularly given the individualistic features of art law claims and how they may, or may not, be addressed through the use of AI in ADR procedures

📚 Click the link below to read the full article by Marina Rastorfer!

https://buff.ly/WROrRfY

06/10/2026

Don't miss our upcoming conversation with Dr. Rubina Raja, Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Aarhus University, as she presents contemporary, collaborative approaches to combating the illicit trade in antiquities, with a particular focus on Palmyra (Tadmor), Syria.

Drawing on the historical relationship between collecting and looting, the discussion will highlight the Palmyrene Portrait Project, a corpus of over 4,000 funerary portraits from Palmyra compiled by Dr. Raja and her team since 2012. The project serves as a critical record of material that, in many cases, remained in situ prior to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.

Before its inception, this body of material had not been treated as a unified corpus, nor systematically digitized. Today, the project stands as both the largest corpus of individual Roman period portraits from a single urban context and an essential scholarly and practical tool for identifying objects from Palmyra as they emerge on the art market.

Please note this event will not be recorded.

🎟️ Get tickets now using the link below!

https://buff.ly/6Occ8Q6

06/09/2026

Recently some artist estates have loosened fair use policies for non-profits. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is one such example. In an effort to promote Rauschenberg's work over short-term revenue gain, it implemented one of the first fair use policies for certain museums before widening it to the public at large.

Artist engagement levels did increase, but the policy brought up other issues, including distinguishing non-profit from for-profit uses.

📚 Click the link below to read more in our article by Josie Goettel!

https://buff.ly/SKuXdPm

06/08/2026

June! Roses are in bloom, summer interns have completed two weeks of orientation and research, and the world is heating up. As we wrap up after the Summer School, with much gratitude to our faculty and students, and digest the Copyright Law Conference takeaways, we cannot wait for our panel discussion Art Markets & the World in Transition (what is not?!) during the Zurich Art Weekend (in town on June 13th? Join us!), and look forward to sharing new research and articles with you posthaste.

Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get all of these updates and more!

📚 Click the link below to get a curated collection of art law news, our most recent published articles, upcoming events, and much more!!

https://buff.ly/yqD9M2h

06/05/2026

In this episode of Art in Brief, Andrea and Paris speak with Will Korner, founder and director of the Cultural Heritage At Risk Database Foundation (CHARD).

From conflict zones to disaster-stricken regions, Will discusses how documentation, collaboration, and technology can help safeguard the objects and stories that connect us to our shared past from illicit trade. He also explains how CHARD’s database can be used to cross-check whether stolen or missing cultural objects are appearing on the art market, including at auction, and what is at stake when these irreplaceable pieces of heritage are lost.

🎙️ Check out the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts using the link below!

https://buff.ly/WEdmdt6

Listen to What is the Cultural Heritage At Risk Database? from Art in Brief wherever you get your podcasts!

06/04/2026

Despite the passage of multiple anti-money laundering laws in the U.S. over the past two decades, the art market is still considered the "largest legal unregulated industry." Its perceived lax regulatory regime and various industry-specific factors, makes high-value art an attractive tool for laundering criminal proceeds.

The rise in laundering through high-value art is mainly attributed to the high-dollar transactions values, the ease of transporting artwork across borders, the market's longstanding culture of privacy, and art's evolution as a financial asset. That said, the art market is not entirely unregulated. As this article shows, other mechanisms — including industry self-regulation, public pressure from high-profile litigation and settlements, and sanction laws — provide a certain regulatory structure.

📚 Click the link in our bio to read more!

https://buff.ly/c2hT1ca

05/31/2026

Join the Center for Art Law for a conversation with Dr. Rubina Raja, Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Aarhus University, as she presents contemporary, collaborative approaches to combating the illicit trade in antiquities, with a particular focus on Palmyra (Tadmor), Syria.

Drawing on the historical relationship between collecting and looting, the discussion will highlight the Palmyrene Portrait Project, a corpus of over 4,000 funerary portraits from Palmyra compiled by Dr. Raja and her team since 2012. The project serves as a critical record of material that, in many cases, remained in situ prior to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.

Before its inception, this body of material had not been treated as a unified corpus, nor systematically digitized. Today, the project stands as both the largest corpus of individual Roman period portraits from a single urban context and an essential scholarly and practical tool for identifying objects from Palmyra as they emerge on the art market.

🎟️ Get tickets now using the link below!

https://buff.ly/aPyEUnH

05/29/2026

On October 6, 2025, the Flemish Government announced plans to transform the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA) into an art center — a change that would make the institution lose its legal museum status and transfer its collection to the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent. Losing this status will have huge legal, financial, and cultural repercussions for the M HKA.

This decision raised strong reactions from the art world, denouncing the false administrative logic behind this reorganization, which, according to the Flemish Minister of Culture, aims to strengthen collaboration and coherence within the cultural landscape. How does this transfer truly impact the Belgian artistic landscape — and does it really contribute to any coherence, or does it instead destroy the long-term curation and expertise that the institution has built in Antwerp?

📚 Click the link below to read the full article by Alexandra Kharchenko.

https://buff.ly/WSXH3F3

05/28/2026

Thank you to all of our sponsors for all of their help in executing our 2026 Art Law Conference!!

#2026