Installation view of SUPERFLEX: Rainbows, Sponges, Flies, and Spoons. Photography by Josh Schaedel.
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is pleased to present a conversation with Daniel McClean and Brian Butler in conjunction with the exhibition SUPERFLEX: Rainbows, Sponges, Flies, and Spoons.
The program takes its title from SUPERFLEX's artwork Copy Right (2006), currently on view in the exhibition. In the work, the artist collective manually alters a mass-produced replica of Arne Jacobsen's iconic Ant Chair to more closely resemble the 1953 original. By transforming a copy into a unique object, and potentially into a new infringement, the work unsettles familiar distinctions between original and copy, authorship and ownership.
Daniel McClean, an attorney who has represented SUPERFLEX in copyright disputes, and Brian Butler, founder of 1301PE, will discuss how the collective uses art to challenge conventional understandings of copyright and intellectual property. Together, they will explore who benefits from current definitions of originality, what possibilities emerge when those assumptions are questioned, and what intellectual property might look like if it were designed to serve the public rather than private interests.
The evening will also feature Free Beer, SUPERFLEX's open-source beer project, brewed for the occasion by Sol Arc Brewing. Developed under a Creative Commons license, Free Beer extends the exhibition's exploration of authorship and ownership into everyday production, inviting anyone to use, adapt, and redistribute its recipe.
Admission is free with rsvp.
BRIAN BUTLER
Brian Butler is an art historian, curator, and founder of 1301PE, a leading contemporary art gallery in Los Angeles. Since establishing the gallery in 1992, he has championed artists from Los Angeles and around the world through exhibitions, publications, and special projects. Butler served as director of ARTSPACE in Auckland, New Zealand, from 2005 to 2008 and has curated exhibitions internationally, including projects at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture and the Venice Biennale. He continues to direct 1301PE while collaborating on international initiatives, including 1301SW with Starkwhite. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Butler has played a significant role in the city's contemporary art community for more than three decades.
DANIEL MCCLEAN
Daniel McClean is a leading international art attorney who practices law in California, as a partner at Cypress LLP, and in England, as a consultant to the London law firm Howard Kennedy LLP. Daniel advises artists, estates, dealers, galleries, advisors, collectors, museums and foundations worldwide. He negotiates and structures complex, high-value art transactions. He advises on resolving art and cultural property disputes, including relating to sale, authenticity, ownership, export and copyright infringement. He works with artists and artists’ estates to provide long-term strategic advice including navigating gallery relationships and protecting their intellectual property. He advises clients regularly on commissioning contemporary art works.
Daniel has a background in the art world before becoming a lawyer, having worked at the Henry Moore Foundation, Marian Goodman Gallery and Artangel before transitioning to law. Daniel has continued to work as an independent curator and writer alongside practicing as a lawyer and often examines inter-disciplinary connections between these fields of practice. He has curated exhibitions with the Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX, including ‘In-between Minimalisms / Free Sol LeWitt’ (with Christiane Berndes) at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2010), and ‘The Corrupt Show and the Speculative Machine’ (with Patrick Charpenel), a survey exhibition at Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico City (2013–2014), both of which engage with the relationship between art and law and, specifically, with copyright constraints and with contractual mechanisms. He has published extensively on art law, including as co-editor (with Karsten Schubert) of Dear Images: Art, Copyright and Culture (Ridinghouse/ICA, 2002) and as commissioning editor of Artist, Authorship & Legacy: A Reader (Ridinghouse, 2018).
Daniel is a co-founder of the Luna Luna company rescued and brought ‘Luna Luna’ (1987), the lost art amusement park, back to life. He is a regular speaker and panelist on art law issues, including at Art Basel, and is a member of The Courtauld Institute of Art Association Committee.