[Seth-Trips] Illegal Art in San Francisco, July 2-25

[Seth David Schoen]

I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and I'm planning
to try to go to pretty much everything associated with it.

----- Forwarded message from Fred von Lohmann EFF <fred at eff.org> -----

I can't say enough good things about the Illegal Art exhibit (sponsored 
in part by Brewster), which showcases art that has been forced 
underground by copyright and trademark law. If you missed it in NYC and 
Chicago, it's now coming to SF, July 2-25, at the SF MOMA Artist's 
Gallery at Fort Mason:

http://www.illegal-art.org/

[...]

----- End forwarded message -----

Here's the whole announcement on the Illegal Art site:


   SFMOMA Artist Gallery, July 2 to 25 (Fort Mason, Building A).
   Reception is Wednesday, July 2nd, 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

   Gallery hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays 11:30 am to 5:30 pm.
   415.441.4777

   Featuring new additions: DAVID BYRNE, TOM SACHS, ENRIQUE CHAGOYA,
   and LAURA SPLAN

   Panel Discussion: Thursday, July 3 from 6 to 8pm, San Francisco Art
   Institute, Lecture Hall, 800 Chestnut Street. 415.771.7020

   Film screenings: Wednesday, July 23 and Thursday, July 24, Roxie
   Cinema (3117 16th St., at corner of Valencia St.)

   To order a copy of the "Illegal Art" issue of Stay Free! magazine
   ($5), click here. The magazine comes with the Illegal Art CD, or
   you can get the CD (which is free) by sending a self-addressed
   padded envelope and $2 to cover postage in the USA ($3 elsewhere)
   to Stay Free! 390 Butler Street, Brooklyn NY 11217.

   The laws governing "intellectual property" have grown so expansive in
   recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them all out.
   Borrowing from another artwork--as jazz musicians did in the 1930s
   and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s--will now land you in
   court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the
   day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have
   never have existed.

   The irony here couldn't be more stark. Rooted in the U.S.
   Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate
   the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it.

   The Illegal Art Exhibit will celebrate what is rapidly becoming the
   "degenerate art" of a corporate age: art and ideas on the legal
   fringes of intellectual property. Some of the pieces in the show have
   eluded lawyers; others have had to appear in court.

   Loaded with gray areas, intellectual property law inevitably has a
   silencing effect, discouraging the creation of new works.

   Should artists be allowed to use copyrighted materials? Where do the
   First Amendment and "intellectual property" law collide? What is
   art's future if the current laws are allowed to stand? Stay Free!
   considers these questions and others in our multimedia program.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Very frankly, I am opposed to people
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | being programmed by others.
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |     -- Fred Rogers (1928-2003),
                                       |        464 U.S. 417, 445 (1984)