What is outlined in the rights agreement you have with the artist? Ownership rights can/are/should be clearly defined as part of acquiring, presenting or reproducing a copy protected piece of work. Do you own the complete rights (ownership of the work as well as all rights to reproduction) to the works you are presenting? Or do you just own the photos themselves (one can own art and not the right the reproduction). This agreement would be the basis for both the resident show as well as any traveling exhibit.

If you are simply displaying his work (the prints)

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Erin O'Malley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello Museum-L!
I have an issue I hope you can help me with. We are preparing a photo exhibit for this coming fall. There has been serious discussion about traveling it in the future. The artist is still living and still sells his work as limited edition prints. He's concerned about how the prints produced for the exhibit will effect those bought by collectors. If we don't end up traveling it he's requested that our prints be destroyed (which we'd hate to do). If it does travel, though, we want to make sure there are no other issues that may come up in regards to copyright, etc. We want to respect his rights as an artist, but also be able to travel and publicize the exhibit as we see fit. I just want to know how other museums have dealt with this sort of issue. This is the first time we've ever considered traveling anything and also the first time we've worked with a living artist who produced prints explicitly for our exhibit.

thanks!
Erin O'Malley
Exhibit Designer

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