Review: Joan Kee, Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America

Abstract

Joan Kee’s latest book Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America may as well be considered the first foundational text in the field of art and law. Initially, this might appear as an overstatement given the sheer amount of literature on the intersection of the two fields over the past two decades. Indeed, excluding legal case books, one might recall titles ranging from Martha Buskirk’s The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art (2003) to the more recent anthology, Daniel McClean’s Artist, Authorship & Legacy: A Reader (2018). These books dutifully address how the continued reconceptualization of art in the postwar era went hand in hand with changes in the conflicting copyright and authorship laws around the world. Yet, if the existing literature remains stubbornly confined to the work of art, Kee’s book proffers a far more expansive approach by focusing on the contentions between art and law: namely, what unfolds when the two disparate fields are put in discomfortingly close proximity? What unexpected aspects might each field glean from the other?