Earlier this year, a federal judge considering a lawsuit filed by artist Mark Grotjahn ruled that the state law does not conflict with the federal Copyright Act of 1976 or otherwise violate the Constitution. But Steiner thinks the issue is far from resolved. "I teach an art law seminar at Loyola, and one of the things we discuss all the time is the constitutionality of this law. I think it will be interesting to see how this issue figures into [future] defenses," she said.
Nobody will hazard a guess at the volume of resale business that falls under the law today. But more than a dozen California gallery owners not named in these suits, speaking last month on condition of anonymity, said that they hope the statute is not upheld. They said that if it were enforced, it could have a chilling effect on secondary-market art sales in California, driving business to galleries in other states. Several dealers also identified the 5% royalty as one reason why contemporary art auctions have failed to flourish in the state despite efforts over the years by the major auction houses.
Many artists, for their part, don't know their full rights under the law. The law requires that the seller or "the seller's agent" pay the royalty directly to the artist, or deposit the money with the California Arts Council if the artist can't be located. According to its "resale royalty coordinator," Patricia Milich, the council has collected slightly more than $325,000 on behalf of 400 artists — the royalties on about $6.5 million worth of art sales — since 1977.
When artists can't be located after seven years, the money goes to the state's Art in Public Places Program. Nearly $50,000 has gone that route.
Painter Rebecca Campbell said she knows about the law because her gallery, L.A. Louver, "is so [on the] up and up that they tell me about everything." She says she has received two royalty checks from them.
Painter Lari Pittman recently received checks from his gallery, Regen Projects, on the resale of "four or five drawings" but added, "I think they are an anomaly. Because I have a somewhat active resale market, I also know of certain galleries who have maybe resold my pieces and I have not received anything from them."
An artist as successful as Mark Bradford said he didn't know about the law until a dealer mentioned it to him a month ago. He says he has never received a royalty from a gallery or from the New York auction houses, where he has had nearly a dozen paintings sell for six-figure prices in the last decade.
"My gallery doesn't hold anything back from me, but you never really know — suddenly a work of mine will go to auction, for example," Bradford said. He described the art market as "still pretty much smoke and mirrors for the artists."
jori.finkel@latimes.com
mike.boehm@latimes.com
