Possession and Dispossession: Intersections of Art and Law

Artworks, as material (and immaterial) objects, must navigate a world structured by property relations. Art may be a cherished possession, but it may also be the means of dispossession. From the well documented use of landscape painting in service of settler colonial ideologies, to photography’s role in abstracting images far beyond their lifeworld, both art and law are tools of world-making (and re-making), which can be used in service of colonial and state power, and/or to push back against dispossessive violence. This panel is situated at the intersection of critical legal studies, art history, and visual studies, in order to think through how ‘art’ and other forms of visual and material culture shape—and are shaped by—systems of law. Similar to Robert Nichols in his book Theft Is Property, this panel seeks to reconstruct the binary of possession/dispossession into a category of critical inquiry that is reflective of/on conditions of capitalism and colonialism (4), considering how art is both cast as a proprietary object, yet often presupposes critical distance from property-like conditions. An individual artwork can be a possession, certainly, but it also holds the multitude interpretations of its meanings and significances. How can art serve and reinforce or destabilize and dismantle property relations through its intersection with law?

This panel invites papers covering topics that may include: property regimes, jurisdiction and jurisprudence, Indigenous legal frameworks, critiques of state or common law, racial capitalism, land use and rights.