Articles and news about recent issues involving litigation, new and upcoming artists, art pieces and the business that surrounds the art world.
Law Office of Stephen J. Goldberg
Business & Entertainment Attorney Los Angeles
Stephen Goldberg’s Art Law Column
in Artillery Magazine
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Art Brief: Desert XXX
There are plenty of deserts around the world. As President Trump memorably said when he abruptly pulled American troops out of Syria as a favor to the Turkish president Erdogan: “There’s a lot of sand there.” So why is it that Desert X, the organization that has put on two well-regarded biennial shows in the […]
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Art Brief: Blood Money?
In September during a visit to Paris, I got lost in the Louvre, a common occurrence caused by its diabolical mazelike layout (maps are useless) and I found myself in the museum’s Oriental Antiquities wing. After viewing hundreds of paintings in the French and Italian rooms, I’d had enough art, so I turned around for the exit, […]
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CREATIVE INFERNO: MR. CHOW Restaurateur/Artist Mr. Chow Sets Off Smoke Alarms
Before I interview Mr. Chow, he sets my copy of his book on fire. After smashing large Sharpies onto a blank page of the book in a riot of color (“green always goes well with red”), he pours flammable paint thinner on the page and calls for his “darlings” to bring him some Kleenex which he rubs […]
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Art Brief: Artists & Bad Behavior
Should an artist’s vile personal acts or beliefs be considered in whether to hear or view their work? The Me Too movement has pushed the private behavior of artists and performers into the public square. Accusations of sexual harassment have damaged the reputations of dozens of artistic figures from Chuck Close to Kevin Spacey. The […]
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Art Brief: Theater of the Absurd
“Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World”—intended to be the most important show of Chinese dissident art in recent years—limped into California late last year. The show traveled to the Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao, Spain and New York before its display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The namesake of the […]
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Art Brief: Russian Oligarch Jolts the Art World—Again
The bitter years-long dispute between billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev and Swiss art-freeport mogul Yves Bouvier (reported in this column previously) has spawned a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Sotheby’s and has resulted in possible criminal charges in Monaco against Rybolovlev—who has ties to the Kremlin. Rybolovlev is known primarily for two things: 1) buying a Palm […]