Lauren van Haaften-Schick

Lauren’s research examines historical intersections of art and law, with a focus on artists’ contracts and artists’ rights laws. Her dissertation examines these issues through the case-study of The Artist’s Reserved Rights, Transfer, and Sale Agreement, developed by conceptual art exhibition organizer and publisher Seth Siegelaub with lawyer Robert Projansky in New York, 1971. Adjacent research interests include artists’ books and multiples, conceptual art, the art market, and racial, gender, and economic equity in the arts. She is a 2020-21 Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellow, and previously held a Doctoral Fellowship at Cornell Tech.

Lauren is co-editor of “Seth Siegelaub: ‘Better Read than Dead,’ Writings and Interviews 1964-2013,” published by Koenig Books and the Stichting Egress Foundation in 2020. Articles include “Conceptualizing Artists’ Rights: Circulations of the Siegelaub-Projansky Agreement through Art and Law,” Oxford Handbooks Online: Law, 2018; “To Offer/To Exchange: In conversation with Charles Simonds,” Performance Research, 2018. Public talks include “Conceptual Art Facing the Law,” MUAC, Mexico City (2019); “Rethinking Artists’ Rights,” Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (series organizer, 2018); and “The Artists’ Resale Right,” Artists Space, New York, 2015. Lauren has presented at the College Art Association Annual Conference and The Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference numerous times, among other conferences, and serves as a member of the CAA Committee on Intellectual Property (2020-23), and as an advisor for The Serpentine Galleries Legal Lab, London, and the Art & Law Program, New York. Curating complements Lauren’s research, with exhibitions “Non-Participation” (2014-16) and “Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures” (2012-14) traveling in the U.S. and abroad. Her research has been supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, Engaged Cornell, and the Terra Foundation for American Art among others. In 2012 she was a Curatorial Fellow at the Art & Law Program. Prior to graduate study, Lauren worked as a curator, gallerist, researcher, grantmaker, and printmaker, and received a BA from Hampshire College in 2006.