Law: The Moral Rights of Artists

Who may say what becomes of art works after they are sold?

Twelve feet high and 120 ft. long, Richard Serra's Tilted Arc stretches like a rampart across the plaza of a federal office building in New York City. It seems only fitting that, as the centerpiece in a drawn-out battle over artists' rights, the steel wall sculpture even looks like a barricade. In % 1985, after workers in the area complained that it inhibited use of the site, the U.S. General Services Administration, which had commissioned the $175,000 piece, recommended its removal. That galvanized the art world and provoked Serra to fight in federal court against any attempt to move it. He...

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