Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 4, 2002|Volume 31, Number 5

Reunion events will explore the
intersection of law and the arts

The intersection of arts and the law will be explored during the Yale Law School's Alumni Weekend, taking place Friday-Sunday, Oct. 4-6.

Lawyer and noted museum scholar Stephen Weil will launch the event with a keynote address titled "Arts and the Law: An Unnatural Coupling?" on Friday at 4 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Sterling Law Buildings, 127 Wall St. His talk is free and open to the public.

Weil is scholar emeritus of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies and is the author of numerous books, including "Making Museums Matter" and "Beauty and the Beasts: On Museums, Art, the Law and the Market." He has also served as deputy director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as an administrator of the Whitney Museum of American Art and as vice-president and general manager of the Marlborough Gallery in New York City. He began his career as an associate of the New York law firm Rosenman, Colin, Freund, Lewis & Cohen. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the American Association of Museums' Distinguished Service Award and the SCRIBES Award for the best law book of 1986 for "Art Law: Rights and Liabilities of Creators and Collectors," which he co-authored with Franklin Feldman.

In his talk, Weil will address some of the topics he has raised in his writings, considering how art can seem as the antithesis of the law.

Other highlights of the weekend event, titled "Arts and the Law," include a moot court appeal based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet," during which law students and graduates with judiciary and litigation specialists will delve into the question "Hamlet: Guilty or Not?"

Panel discussions featuring alumni who are scholars, writers, playwrights, producers, judges, lawyers and entertainment agents will address such questions as: Who owns the past -- those who possess art and antiquities or their countries of origin, or all mankind? What constitutes art and freedom of artistic expression? Does the legal representation of artists and entertainers differ from other types of representation?; and, how are the law and lawyers depicted in today's movies and television series, in classic novels or in paintings?

A complete schedule of the Alumni Weekend 2002 is available online at www.law.yale.edu/alumniweekend.

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Campus Notes