ICON Contemporary CPD & Networking Event: 'Demystifying Copyright and Legal Issues in the Conservation of Contemporary Art'

In the acquisition of contemporary artworks, legal documents are a common tool used by artists, galleries, and collecting institutions to transfer ownership and secure permissions of use. This is particularly pertinent for time-based media, installation, and performance artworks where no physical object is necessarily provided to the collecting institution in exchange for remuneration. In these instances, certificates of authenticity, commissioning agreements, purchase agreements, licensing agreements, and MOUs (memos of understanding) become critical. The rights of artists and of collecting institutions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and in some cases the law's view of the "copyright work" may differ from the artist or conservator's view of the artwork. While many collecting institutions have legal departments, conservators play a key role in understanding and feeding into these discussions.

In this special CPD and networking event hosted at UCL East we will discuss rights, permissions, trust, enforceability, and the ways in which documents with legal weight circulate and operate within the museum sphere. We will be joined by Bernard Horrocks and Dr Zoe Miller, experts in intellectual property and copyright law in a contemporary art and conservation context. Bernard Horrocks will give a brief introduction to intellectual property rights. He will then outline copyright in more detail, focusing on the areas of special concern for conservators, especially those working with big collections, as well as highlight some considerations when publishing about conservation activity. Zoe Miller will discuss the ways in which legal and quasi-legal documents construct and delineate the boundaries and properties of artworks, and establish understanding about how to secure a futurity for these works. Zoe will review specific contacts and cases to gain a better understanding of how artists “make their own law.”

Following this we will have a panel discussion with our speakers and open up the discussion to the audience.

We very much encourage people to come in person and to treat this as a networking opportunity, but for those for whom this is not possible we will also offer the option of online virtual attendance

Registration:
£10 / concession (free) for matriculated students and unwaged

Please register using the website link below.

About the speakers:
Bernard Horrocks is the Tate Gallery’s Head of Intellectual Property. He is responsible for the management of IP across the whole Tate family in relation to the collection, exhibitions and archive, as well as Tate Enterprises (the Gallery’s commercial arm). Previously he was IP Manager at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Dr Zoe Miller completed a PhD in intellectual property law at Maastricht University in 2023 as part of the Horizon 2020 ITN New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art (NACCA) research consortium. Her doctoral research examined what authorship and ownership mean in the context of making and conserving contemporary artworks. Since 2022, she has worked in the copyright department at the British Library.