noland in Weinmayr 2019


ndanger his art’s
operability in the art world. On the contrary, it constructs and affirms his
reputation as a radical and saleable artist-author.

## De-Authoring

A very different approach to copyright law is demonstrated by American artist
Cady Noland, who employs the law to effectively endanger her art’s operability
in the art market. Noland is famously concerned with the circulation and
display of her work with respect to context, installation and photographic
representation. Relatedly, she has also become very critical of short-term
speculation on the art market. Noland has apparently not produced any new work
for over a decade, due to the time she now spends pursuing litigation around
her existing oeuvre.[53](ch11.xhtml#footnote-473) In 2011, she strikingly
demonstrated that an artist need not give up control when


rofit. She
made probably one of the most important stands in modern art history when she
‘de-authored’ her work Cowboys Milking (1990), after it was put up for auction
at Sotheby’s with the consequence that the work could not be sold as a Cady
Noland work anymore.

Swiss-born dealer Marc Jancou, based in New York and Geneva, had consigned the
work to Sotheby’s a few months after having purchased it for $106,500 from a
private collector.[54](ch11.xhtml#footnote-472) Jancou was obviously attracted
by the fact that one of Noland’s works had achieved the highest price for a
piece by a living female artist: $6.6m.

At Noland’s request, on the eve of the auction, Sotheby’s abruptly withdrew
the piece, a silkscreen print on an aluminium panel. The artist argued that it
was damaged: ‘The current condition […] materially differs from that at the
time of its creation. […] [H]er honor and reputation [would] be prejudiced as
a result of offering [it] for sale with her name associated with
it.’[55](ch11.xhtml#footnote-471) From a legal point of view, this amounts to
a withdrawal of Noland’s authorship. The US Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990,
VARA, grants artists ‘authorship’ rights over works even after they have been
sold, including the right to prevent intentional modification and to forbid
the use of their name in associati


ased on the premise that
the integrity of a work needs to be guaranteed and a work of art has cultural
significance that extends beyond mere property
value.[57](ch11.xhtml#footnote-469)

Noland’s withdrawal of authorship left Jancou with ‘a Cady Noland’ in his
living room, but not on the market. In an email to Sotheby’s, he complained:
‘This is not serious! Why does an auction house ask the advise [sic] of an
artist that has no gallery representation and has a biased and radical
approach to the art market?’[58](ch11.xhtml#footnote-468) Given that Noland is
a long-standing and outspoken sceptic with respect to speculative dealing in
art, he somewhat naively wonders why she would be able to exercise this degree
of power over an artwork that had been entered into a system of commercial
exchange. His complaint had no effect. The piece remained withdrawn from the
auction and Jancou filed a lawsuit in February 2012 seeking $26 million in
damages from Sotheby’s.[59](ch11.xhtml#footnote-467)

From an economic perspective, both artists, Noland and Prince, illustrated
powerfully how authorship is instituted in the form of the artist’s signature,
to construct (Prince’s Catcher in the Rye) or destroy (Noland’s Cowboy
Milking) monetary value. Richard Prince’s stated intention is to dou


the contrary lowers the value of her artwork by removing her
signature and by asserting the artist-author’s (Noland) rights over the
dealer-owner’s (Jancou).[60](ch11.xhtml#footnote-466)

However, from a legal perspective I would argue that both Noland and Prince —
in their opposite approaches of removing and adding their signatures — affirm
authorship as it is conceptualised by the law.[61](ch11.xhtml#footnote-465)
After all ‘copyright law is a system to which the notion of the author app


and secondly through the project’s collective practice itself.

## Collective Authorship, Institutional Framing

The collaborative mode and collectivity within the Piracy Project
differentiates its artistic strategy in principle from Prince’s or Noland’s
approaches, who both operate as individuals claiming individual authorship for
their work.

But how did the Piracy Project deal with the big authorship question? There
was an interesting shift here: when the project still operated within the art


2>

Buchloh, Benjamin (2009) ‘Pictures’, in David Evans (ed.), Appropriation,
Documents of Contemporary Art (London: Whitechapel Gallery), originally
published in October 8 (1979), 75–88.

Buskirk, Martha (9 December 2013) ‘Marc Jancou, Cady Noland, and the Case of
the Authorless Artwork’, Hyperallergic, jancou-cady-noland-and-the-case-of-an-authorless-artwork/>

Butler, Judith (2001) ‘What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault’s Virtue’,
Transversal 5,


arcell.memoryoftheworld.org/>

Muñoz Sarmiento, Sergio and Lauren van Haaften-Schick (2013–2014) ‘Cariou v.
Prince: Toward a Theory of Aesthetic-Judicial Judgements’, in Texas A&M Law
Review, vol. 1.

Munro, Cait (10 November 2014) ‘Is Cady Noland More Difficult To Work With
Than Richard Prince?’, artNet news, cady-noland-as-psychotic-as-richard-prince-162310>

Myers, Julian (26 August 2009) Four Dialogues 2: On AAAARG, San Francisco
Museum of Modern Ar


the image shows a photographic representation of
Rastafarians. And similar to the Cariou case Prince appropriates Graham’s and
Cariou’s cultural appropriation of Rastafarian culture.

[53](ch11.xhtml#footnote-473-backlink) Cait Munro quotes Cady Noland from
Sarah Thornton’s book 33 Artists in 3 Acts. Noland gave Thornton her first
interview for twenty-four years: ‘Noland, an extremely talented artist, has
become so obsessed with her old work that she’s been unable to create anything
new in years. She admits to Thornton that ‘I’d like to get into a studio and
start making work,’ but that tracking the old work has become a ‘full-time
thing’. Cait Munro, ‘Is Cady Noland More Difficult To Work With Than Richard
Prince?’, artNet news, 10 November 2014, /is-cady-noland-as-psychotic-as-richard-prince-162310>;

[54](ch11.xhtml#footnote-472-backlink) Martha Buskirk, ‘Marc Jancou, Cad


n of
that work is a violation of that right’, from US Code, Title 17, § 106A, Legal
Information Institute, Cornell Law School,


[57](ch11.xhtml#footnote-469-backlink) Buskirk, ‘Marc Jancou, Cady Noland’.

[58](ch11.xhtml#footnote-468-backlink) Ibid.

[59](ch11.xhtml#footnote-467-backlink) Jancou’s claim was dismissed by the New
York Supreme Court in the same year. The Court’s decision was based on the
language of Jancou’s consignment agreem


st 2013,
dispute-with-jancou-gallery-over-cady-noland-artwork/>

[60](ch11.xhtml#footnote-466-backlink) It might be important here to recall
that both Richard Prince and Cady Noland are able to afford the expensive
costs incurred by a court case due to their success in the art market.

[61](ch11.xhtml#footnote-465-backlink) The legal grounds for Noland’s move,
the federal Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, is based on French moral rights
or author rights (droit d’auteur), which are inspired by the humanistic and
individualistic values of the French Revolution and form part of European
copyright

 

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