Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Mr. Chairman, Senators:

Richard Serra

Sculptor

175 Duane Street

New York, NY 10013

For me to speak of the necessity of moral rights for
artists or of the necessity for the United States to
join the Berne Convention is not a theoretical exercise.
If the United States had signed the treaty I would not be
involved in a lengthy and distressing lawsuit against the
Federal Government to protect one of my sculptures from

destruction.

I will try to explain briefly what I do and why I have a personal interest in article 6 of the Berne Convention. My major concern as a sculptor is to build works which are oriented to a site. This concept developed by myself and other artists in the late sixties and seventies

has come to be known as the concept of site-specificity. Specificity of a site-oriented work means that this work has been conceived for, is dependent upon and inseparable from its location. The work is, as a matter of fact, identical with its location. By definition that means,

-2

to remove or relocate a site-specific work is to destroy it. This is the essential difference between an autonomous

art work and a work made for and in its main characteristics determined by a particular site.

I have built site-specific sculptures in countries all over

the world, countries, which for the most part are signatories of the Berne Treaty. Never has one of my sculptures been threatened by removal or destruction.

In 1979 I was commissioned by the General Services Administration to build a piece for Federal Plaza in New York. Everybody involved in the decision making process, the members of the NEA panel which suggested me, the GSA committee which selected

me,

the architects of the buildings adjoining Federal Plaza, the GSA officer who negotiated my contract as well as the GSA contracting officer understood clearly that I would propose and install a site-specific work. I was given explicit contractual commitments as to the permanent character of the installation. The sculpture I conceived for Federal Plaza, Tilted Arc, was finalized in 1981.

-3

Please allow me to develop a short history of my grievance. In 1984, William J. Diamond, Regional Administrator of the GSA decided that Tilted Arc ought to be removed from Federal Plaza. In order to "democratically" justify his intention, he called a Public Hearing. I was subjected to this kangoroo court for three days. Although two thirds of the speakers at this hearing spoke in favor of retaining the sculpture in the context it was conceived for, Mr. Diamond insisted on its removal. The then Acting Administrator of the GSA in Washington, Dwight D. Ink, followed Mr. Diamond's recommendation and concluded that Tilted Arc should be relocated, but -so

Mr. Ink

not be destroyed. Neither Mr. Diamond nor Mr. Ink paid any credence to my artistic concept, nor were they willing to pay attention to numerous experts who patiently and eloquently tried to explain this concept. They insisted instead that Tilted Arc was property of the Government and therefor it was up to the Government to say that my sculpture "would not be destroyed if it were moved to another compatible place with adequate viewing space." Since the GSA decision to relocate my sculpture, obviously, jeopardizes my artistic concept I had no other choice than to take my case to court.

Judge Milton Pollack of the United States District Court decided that I am not protected by the copyright law and

-4

the trademark law of the United States. He quotes the following statute in answer to my copyright claim:

Hereafter, whenever the copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States shall be infringed by the United States... the exclusive remedy of the owner of such copyright shall be by action against the United States in the Claims Court for the recovery of his reasonable

and entire compensation as damages for such

infringements.

Is it really true that in America an artwork can be destroyed and the artist has no possibility to prevent destruction under the laws of this country; that his only redress is to bring his case to the Claims Court and argue for petty cash? If the copyright law as it exists limits itself to this solution, we very urgently need copyright legislation which honors the moral rights of artists.

Judge Pollack states in answer to my trademark claim:

...the mark of the sculpture "Tilted Arc" is not
at issue in this case. The site of the sculpture
is distinct from the name of the art; the name is
not in controversy. The identifying mark of the art
in any relocated site would remain the same. The

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »