Dematerialisation and Dissonance: Conceptual Art Practices, Art World Strategies and the Role of Copyright Law

Abstract

Conceptual art, a set of practices concerned with interrogating accepted orthodoxies of artistic authorship and the dematerialisation of the art object, is potentially incompatible with the doctrine of copyright law in both the UK and the US. Evidence of this schism is to be found in the UK, where only a specific list of narrowly defined types of artistic expression are protected, and in both jurisdictions through the application of the criteria for subsistence generally. The hypothesis of this study is that copyright protection for conceptual art practices is intermittent and that the alternative legal and non-legal forms of protection employed within the art world are currently more effective because they embrace a less restrictive conception of authorship and privilege the values of authenticity and aura, which are supported by the social norms and moral code of the art world. This thesis presents this hypothesis through an interdisciplinary analysis of copyright law and art theory. This exploration focuses on three areas of conceptual art practice - text based instructional works, works developing from the readymade tradition and performative art works. Specifically, this thesis adopts a socio-legal analysis of conceptual art protections through both a qualitative analysis of doctrine and a set of empirical interviews conducted in the art world capitals of London and New York. This dual-focused approach demonstrates the limited nature of copyright and the alternative forms of protection for creative works employed within the art world. The thesis finally suggests that, while a robust alternative system of art world protections is available, a number of legal reforms may nonetheless allow copyright law to assume a greater role in future in view of its potential usefulness in licensing, thereby facilitating conceptual art practices’ privileging of the document, and also in protecting the moral interests of artists.