Art is born to all
When it comes to art, it is very simple. Everyone is born art, and everyone is an artist. A person quack to the ground, his instinct is to suck milk water. When he has the consciousness of autonomy and ability to grasp a brush, he will be surprised at the first stroke of the paper, which is his first artistic practice, and that is the first time he expresses to the world. He must be surprised at the mark of the world, which was his first dialogue with the world.
In fact, the history of art dates back to the rock paintings in the French Lasco cave and the Altamira Cave in Spain, 40000 years ago. Is there any earlier rock paintings? Maybe there will be new discoveries in the future. We can see from ancient rock paintings that they are the earliest signs of human expression of their ideas. Our country also has many ancient rock paintings and traces left by many ancestors. Although we don't know what the purpose of the marks they left at that time, we can explore the thought of the forefathers, touch the soul of the ancestors and talk to the ancestors through such traces.
Life is perishable, but thought lasts forever
People have limited life span, which is a hundred years old, but they will soon pass. When people die, they can not take anything away. All that can be left behind is the information contained in various media. The development of human civilization is like a step by step. The development of art, technology and human civilization, from the beginning of the scar, to Oracle Bone text, and then there are photography, recording machines, video recorders, and to the present, we are using mobile phones, people constantly to find, discover, record their own. The progress of technology is actually the process of human creation, dissemination and utilization of their own ideas.
"Art is the best expression of being human." I didn't think of this sentence. I was in wechat exchange with a young judge. I told her that we would organize an international forum on art law, which she said first. She told me that she also knew that in the legal circle, in the crowd, she could understand an art work, understand the profound meaning of it, and realized that "art is the best expression of human being", but it is not much. Including many students in our art academy, if you want to ask them why they want to learn art? Maybe not everyone can say it very clearly.
When art encounters copyright
We see a picture of ten young men and women naked. They stack four layers according to their own weight, and form a work. The work, named "one meter higher for the nameless mountain", once participated in the 48th Venice International Biennial in 1999, which caused a stir at that time and became a classic work of Chinese behavioral art. The work has been subject to copyright problems. First, it's creative. When several young artists were eating and chatting together, we should make such a work. Then, everyone talked about it and enriched its contents. A great idea was formed in the collective discussion. How to present creative ideas in a visible way? At that time, the young people had a relatively low income. Each of them made 200 yuan, rented a car and found a place. They invited the photographer to weigh according to the rules agreed in advance, and then "fold" the weight from the bottom to the bottom, and then "set the frame" and the photographer press the shutter. It is such a creative process. Nobody thought the work would be so sensational at the time. Fame brings benefits. By the time they realized the copyright issue, they began to fight. We all know who the film is in is particularly important. The photographer is smart, and maybe he has long foreseen a copyright struggle. So, in the moment of "setting" of the work, he pressed the shutter to take more than ten pictures. When distributing the negative, when ten authors, the photographer said one person, cut ten pieces on the spot and gave them to ten people, and the surplus films were destroyed. Ten negatives are drawn at the time of distribution, and which one is drawn by ten people. So there are ten original works in this work. What we see is just one of them.
There is no limit to thinking
One of the ten was called zuozu. He is said to be very dissatisfied with the dispute that the creative group had in determining copyright. So he made ten pigs piled together, and he made a new work called "I love contemporary art too.". He used the new work to tease the "let the unknown mountain rise by one meter" by ten living people, including himself. Later, he also developed derivatives in the shape of ten pigs and sold them online. How much is it for? It's more than 200 yuan, and it's still available. The work of behavioral art, created by ten people in groups, and derivatives from ten pigs, sold at a high price. The reason why buyers are willing to pay is because the works of art are a little interesting. This means that they buy not only the object (Art of Art), but also the meaning of the thing; the thought that is condensed on the artistic shape is worth the money.
opportunity
Back to my speech, "art law in China - opportunities and challenges.". What is the opportunity? The first opportunity is to further emancipate the mind. In the work "raise one meter for the unknown mountain", a symbolic artistic language, nudity, is accepted by the public, which is a progress of Chinese thought. What was the attitude of the Chinese to nudity? For example, the work of "Water Splashing Festival" created by Yuan Yunsheng for capital airport, in which the bathing woman was still dressed, that is, the female contour was too obvious to "protrude", but it was not accepted and criticized at that time. But "nameless mountain" is naked, but now people not only accept it, but also regard it as a classic. The second opportunity is that ideas can be sold as property. Why are the photos of "one meter higher for the unknown mountain" and the derivative "I love contemporary art too" are sold in public, why are they valuable? And it's so expensive? Because on them, there is the artist's thoughts. The picture can be burned, but "raise one meter for the unknown mountain" as a classic of contemporary Chinese art can not be burned, it will always stand there.
The story of a speaker just now, the painting of British graffiti artist banks, the girl and balloon, was destroyed at the auction site, which is a classic case. When the hammer was closed, the picture frame suddenly sounded a warning bell, and the picture inside the frame slipped slowly. The paper shredder inside the frame cut the half of the painting into thin strips. Banks' remote control of broken paintings is seen as a protest against the over commercialization of the art market. But the work was not destroyed, but it added value. Why is it worth more? Because the process of creation, display, auction and disruption of the work contains rich ideas, the broken painting behavior gives the painting a more abundant connotation, and the ideas in the work show its value more and more. In many copyright cases, judges always ask, "what is the object of the lawsuit", and the two parties have spent a lot of time on the definition and concept of the work. But few people wonder what makes the work valuable? What is the idea behind the work? In fact, the law protects not the work (the object), but the use of the creator's "original" thought. With the deepening of reform and opening up, we are seeing the value of thought more and more. China is emerging a market for ideas. Only in a free environment can a country have a good growth of ideas.
Challenge
What are the challenges? There are many challenges. For example, how to judge the boundaries of artistic expression is a challenge. Nudity is a very vivid artistic language, but to use it well, there must be a standard or legal boundary. Because there is no standard, although many similar works are accepted, there are also many forbidden by the unreasonable. Furthermore, how to make legal people more exposed to art practice is also a challenge. In the trial of specific cases, the law and art are divided into two parts, the legal person does not understand art, and the artiste lacks the law. These two types of people usually speak each other, so some controversial decisions occur. In copyright circle, in some academic seminars, many are talking about "poetry and distance", which is far from art practice and market demand. Scholars will spend a lot of time on the research of typology. What is typology? Who can say it clearly? In fact, copyright law does not care about what is a typed work, but only focuses on the work in the case. The author's contribution to the idea is not properly used. As for what it is, what kind of work it is, it doesn't matter.
All the art forms, all the artistic symbols, are just the carrier of thought. The reason why an art work is great is not because of which symbol it uses, but the idea conveyed by the work (through specific symbols). In this sense, we should admit that thought is greater than symbol. Shape is limited, and there is no end to thinking. Art law is an independent subject. Why is it an independent subject? Because it is not a simple "law + art", or a simple "Art + law", it is not that you have learned law, plus several litigation cases involving art, you can study art law well. The research of art law requires both legal, artistic history and artistic practice experience. If you can't understand a specific art work, or understand the history of art and art creation practice, at this time, you may be a civil law scientist, you may be a high-level copyright lawyer, but it is difficult to be called an excellent art law expert. Therefore, for those who want to work in art law, my suggestion is not only to master the legal knowledge, but also to read several books of art history, make friends with artists, and experience the artistic creation practice personally. Every day, I can ask myself: are you art today?
(this paper is the author's keynote speech at the International Forum on art law 2019. The author is a researcher of Intellectual Property Center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and part-time professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts)
