President Obama just appointed Victoria A. Espinel to be the first U.S. copyright czar. The position sounds like one more unnecessary addition to Washington bureaucracy (and it probably will be), but Espinel actually has a real opportunity to help fix our profoundly broken copyright laws, which--rather than fostering...

Mannie Garcia, the photographer who took the famous photograph that Shepard Fairey used to make his "Hope" poster, has officially jumped in the fray.

When the AP first threatened Fairey with legal action in February, it was not at all clear that the...

Last night, over 1800 people flooded the old Dia Art Foundation building in Chelsea, now the home of X-Initiative, for the opening of No Soul For Sale. Originally conceived by art-world jester Maurizio Cattelan, it is a sort of anti-art-fair fair showcasing...

The New York Foundation for the Arts just posted the video (here and below) of my seminar at the annual Business of Art Conference, held last month in New York City. In the video, I explain two important ways to keep track of your art and...

"Nearly 6 million people make their living in the nonprofit arts industry," First Lady Michelle Obama reminded everyone yesterday during her remarks at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she cut the ribbon for the re-opening of the American Wing. "Arts and cultural activities," she continued, "contribute more...

"A lot of people in the art world just hate his guts," said director Michael Sladek about Mark Kostabi, the one-time darling of the New York art scene whose meteoric rise in the early 80's was almost as rapid as his total collapse a decade later. Kostabi's recent attempts to...

This post is based on the book ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (And Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career, by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber, which arrives in bookstores this week.


In the course of researching ART/WORK, we interviewed 100 arts professionals...

The AP shot back at Shepard Fairey yesterday, filing counterclaims alleging that Fairey's HOPE poster, which he created based on a photograph by Mannie Garcia, was a "willful and blatant violation of the The AP's copyright." Despite its melodramatic rhetoric, the AP has a weak case.

The Armory Show kicked off yesterday in New York, but signs of the cruel economy are looming (some literally) over the sprawling international art fair.

The organizers of the show, which drew over 50,000 visitors last year, say they expect more people this year,...

It looks like the Obamas are going to put modern and contemporary art up in the White House. This is great news.

As I wrote here a few weeks ago, it is long overdue for the White House to bring its art collection into...

The ongoing battle over the Obama HOPE poster makes for a perfect lesson on what "fair use" is. And now Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) is getting a lesson on what "fair use" isn't: his chest-beating, stimulus-opposing, victory-proclaiming video set to the tune of Aerosmith's "Back...

A few days ago, the Associated Press announced that Obama's famous HOPE poster amounts to copyright infringement. The artist behind the poster, Shepard Fairey, has never hidden the fact that he based his iconic creation on a photograph he found through Google. The AP thinks it owns the...

Obama hasn't had time to redecorate the oval office yet, though he recently signaled his intention to get rid of those decorative plates.

Whenever he does get around to hanging art in his new house, he should go contemporary--that is, pick work made by living...