Art, Business & the Law

This course examines art at the intersection of business and the law from a number of different angles, focusing on how the issues raised by particular case studies, whether legal, ethical and/or financial, impact our understanding of how works of art circulate, are received, evaluated and acquire different meanings in given social contexts. Topics include the design, construction and contested signification of selected war memorials; the rights involved in the display and desecration of the American flag; censorship of sexually charged images; how the value of art is appraised; institutional critique and the art museum, among others.