Visual Arts and Design
This includes the particular needs of those who work in the visual arts, craft and design fields. We were the first firm in Australia to specialise in this area.
We act for leading painters, sculptors, printmakers, ceramists, video artists, multimedia producers, design companies, public museums, commercial galleries and many industry organisations.
This work includes:
- multi-media, on-line services and new technology
- commissioning relationships
- gallery-artist relationships
- exhibition and touring
- leasing of works
- licensing of rights
- collecting societies
- consultant agreements
- copyright and designs law
- moral rights
- obscenity and censorship
- designers' standard terms
- business structures
- insurance
- contracts for graphic, industrial, retail and other designers
- sponsorship
Shane Simpson has written or edited numerous books including "The Visual Artist and the Law" and "Museums and Galleries", both of which remain the leading texts in the field.
He is also conducted the first Federal Government Inquiry into Australian Copyright Collecting Societies. One of its recommendations led to the establishment of VISCOPY, the collecting society for visual arts and design in Australia.
He was founder and first director of the Arts Law Centre of Australia and has been on the board of numerous cultural companies and organisations. These include the Cultural Grants Advisory Council (NSW); Craft Australia; ArtSpace; the William Fletcher Trust, the Visual Artists' Benevolent Trust; the Australia Exhibitions Touring Agency; and the National Association of the Visual Arts and Chairman of Museums and Galleries NSW - the principal services provider to the public museum and gallery sector in New South Wales. Adam Simpson is on the board of VISCOPY.