By John Paul Benitez, Esq.

The New York Times reports on New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s (affectionately MoMA) plan to unveil its newly designed Web site after five years of an adherence to the classics. Like its name, MoMA is moving into the modern way of doing things online – and that is the interactive way. 

Too bring a bit of heresy, and a lot of hypocrisy, onto the Art Law Team’s blog, can I suggest MoMA might want to re-think rushing into embracing the Web 2.0 philosophy?**

The Times reports "[t]he site, which … MoMA officials stress is a work in progress, will now include what its designers call a ‘social bar’ at the bottom, which when clicked will expand to show images and other information that users can ‘collect’ and share after registering for a free account at the Web site (www.moma.org);" and "for the last two years MoMA has been branching out energetically elsewhere on the Web, creating a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed (something the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many other museums also maintain) and a Flickr group, where museum visitors can upload their pictures, some of which will end up on the museum’s Web pages … Museum visitors with cell phones will be able to text the number associated with an artwork to an area on the museum’s Web site."

So where’s the issue?

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By William F. Zieske

If I am going to be writing about art, even the law concerning art and the art world, I feel obligated to tell anyone who might read my blog what I think about art generally.

Where to start in defining art? Philosophically, it can be anything that’s not nature. Nature vs. art, like fact vs. fiction – if it came out of the human mind, it’s art. But looking at the mass-produced mug in my hand this morning (with BRYAN CAVE on the side, and “M Ware® China” on the bottom), it’s hard to say that’s art.

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By John Paul Benitez, Attorney at Law

The Art Newspaper breaks this story. While not an earth shattering revelation, the clipping at least helps keep an important concept in the collective conscience of the art community: armed negotiating for your best interests isn’t a strategy exclusive to the suit-and-tie set. The rules of engagement apply whether your product is oil on canvas or oil in an SUV.