Public Art: Owning The Image As Well As The Art

The City of Chicago is preventing artists from taking photos of the Anish Kapoor “Bean” sculpture in the middle of the park, saying that as public art, it owns rights to images of the work as well as the work itself. “According to attorney Henry Kleeman, who negotiated with park artists on the city’s behalf, Chicago bought a ‘perpetual paid-up license to reproduce the artwork for commercial purposes.’ So only the city or its concessionaires may legally sell pictures of the Bean.”