Greetings,

Authenticity is having a moment. This issue kept handing me variations on a single question — what counts as real? A museum quietly swapping authentic works for reproductions, illustrators watching AI copies of their work multiply, a federal exhibition conjuring the founding fathers with AI.

And then there is Charles Ross's Star Axis — a phenomenal, out-of-this-world earthwork, 50 years in the making, that reveals the remarkable link between science, nature, and art. In a similar spirit, physicists have turned to Pollock and Rothko to explain a deep-space puzzle: proof once more of the symbiosis between creativity and physics.

Elsewhere: the Smithsonian is under fire, a Nazi-looted Modigliani may cost millions in interest, Bouvier is back in court, Koons beat a decades-late copyright claim, cash-strapped museums are pooling funds to buy art, and Giacometti keeps climbing into nine-figure territory. On the AI front, a climbable "metaverse spider" heads to Frieze London, where machine-made "slop" becomes sculptural material.

After so much artifice, our featured artist is a disarming counterpoint: Sharry Phelan Wright, whose layered collages stitch found portraits, family photographs, and a touch of tarot into imagined histories — artifice enlisted not to deceive, but to animate her ancestors and the lives they might have lived.

Closer to home, our own blog is busy. Our Fellow Martina Bosi makes the case that scaling social-impact investment in the arts starts with something deceptively simple — documenting what already works. And I'm proud that the Project is supporting Hidden Layers, a cross-campus exhibition on AI and its hallucinations, as we finalize the program for our inaugural Intensive Seminar and welcome its first cohort.

Coming Up

📅 Hidden Layers: AI Infrastructures and Hallucinations

Opening September 3, 2026. Learn more>

📅 Inaugural Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Intensive Seminar

Nov 30 through Dec 3, 2026. Learn more and apply>

Let's dive in!

Delia Violante

Founding Director of the Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Project

Berkeley Center for Law and Business

Sharry Phelan Wright - Eve Peels the Apple (Multilayered Digital Photo Collage)

ACADEMIC CORNER

Art As Real Property

EDWARD W. DE BARBIERI & PATRICIA YOUNGBLOOD REYHAN | ALBANY LAW SCHOOL

When a museum sells donated art tied to donor restrictions, courts and attorneys have no clear rulebook. De Barbieri and Reyhan propose borrowing one from real property law — giving institutions a framework that encourages giving while keeping art in public view. Read more>

FRESH OFF THE BLOG

Scaling Cultural Impact Investment

MARTINA BOSI | BERKELEY ART, LAW, AND FINANCE PROJECT

As public arts funding retreats, scaling social-impact investment in the arts hinges on one unglamorous step: documenting what already works. Two cases — a blood-donation program staged in an Orléans museum and the design-led Head-Up Collar for motor neuron disease — show how making best practices visible builds investor credibility. Read more>

When Indian Art Crosses Borders

ROSHNEK DHALLA | KHAITAN & CO

Indian art is fetching record prices abroad, but every cross-border sale must clear two very different systems. Dhalla shows how India has eased the financial rules governing the trade while keeping tight controls on exporting culturally significant works — a divide that makes provenance essential to selling legally. Read more>

LAW AND POLICY

Koons Beats Copyright Claim

ARTNET

A U.S. appeals court sided with Jeff Koons, rejecting a prop designer's claim that Koons copied his 1988 serpent sculpture in the "Made in Heaven" series. Citing the "discovery rule," the court found he'd waited too long — suing 30 years after the work drew worldwide coverage. Read more>

Bouvier Back in Court

ARTNEWS

Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier wants a New York court to make Sotheby's hand over records on a private Picasso sale, part of a new French criminal case against dealer Antoine Peretti. Bouvier says he bought the work for $7.25 million on a profit-sharing deal, only to find it quietly resold for $9 million — with neither his money nor his share returned. Read more>

A Modigliani's Long Reckoning

ARTNEWS

Having ruled that a Nazi-looted Modigliani belongs to the heirs of dealer Oscar Stettiner, Justice Joel Cohen now says they're owed years of prejudgment interest — potentially millions. Tellingly, he'd reduce it if precedent allowed, finding no evidence buyer David Nahmad knew the work was looted. A September hearing sets the value. Read more>

MARKET AND FINANCE

Report Alert: Heirs Turn to Art

BANK OF AMERICA PRIVATE BANK

As an estimated $124 trillion passes from baby boomers to their heirs, a BofA survey finds younger collectors drawn to alternative investments they feel passionate about — art collections among them. Read more>

Museums Team Up to Buy Art

ARTNET

Facing rising costs, more museums are pooling resources for joint acquisitions — from the Met and Cleveland splitting 18th-century prints to LA's Hammer, LACMA, and MOCA sharing a 300-work collection. The shift away from a century of competitive collecting reflects both financial pressure and a more collegial ethos. Read more>

Giacometti's Top Auction Results

ARTNEWS

A countdown of the ten most expensive Giacometti works ever sold, tracing the sculptor's climb into nine-figure territory — from $28.5 million for a Femme Leoni to the record $141.3 million for L'Homme au doigt in 2015, still the high-water mark for any sculpture at auction. Hedge-fund billionaire Steven Cohen bought two of the top three. Read more>

ART AND TECHNOLOGY

AI Copycats Target Artists

BBC NEWS

Illustrators like Kerrie McNeill and Terry Bradley watch AI-altered copies of their work resurface on Temu faster than they can be taken down, undercutting the originals. With takedowns an "exhausting cycle" and litigation hopeless against overseas sellers, experts warn the technology has outpaced the law. Read more>

A Digital Spider at Frieze

ARTNET

Frieze Artist Award winner Theo Triantafyllidis is bringing a monumental, climbable spider to Frieze London — a tactile portal into his "Feral Metaverse," an interactive game rejecting Silicon Valley's frictionless vision. Working with Google Arts and Culture, the Greek artist treats AI "slop" as raw sculptural material. Read more>

When Pollock Meets Physics

PHYS ORG

For decades, physicists have thought that the behavior of particles in Earth’s radiation belts resembled a painting by Mark Rothko: A smooth diffusion with little structure. A new study finds that it’s really more like a painting by Jackson Pollock, with implications for spacecraft safety and communications. Who knew? Read more>

CULTURE AND HERITAGE

Museum Chiefs Under Fire

THE NEW YORK TIMES

As the National Museum of American History's director faced hostile congressional hearings over alleged "political activism," ousted Portrait Gallery head Kim Sajet watched with grim recognition. Meanwhile, the administration staged its own show — "Passport to Patriotism," complete with AI-generated founding fathers. Read more on the hearings> Read more on the exhibition>

A Time Portal in the Desert

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

For 50 years, land artist Charles Ross has carved "Star Axis" into a New Mexico mesa — a naked-eye observatory whose 147-step staircase aligns to Polaris, letting visitors ascend through 26,000 years of celestial time. This short film traces one artist's half-century devotion to making the cosmos visible. Watch>

When the Art Isn't Real

THE NEW YORK TIMES

When sunlight threatened light-sensitive works in the New York Historical's new $175 million wing, the museum quietly swapped 17 for reproductions and pulled three more — after the director refused to lower the shades. The episode reignited debate over authenticity and what museums owe the public. Read more>

MEET THE ARTIST

Eve Peels the Apple

SHARRY PHELAN WRIGHT

Sharry Phelan Wright is a San Francisco-based poet, artist and visual storyteller who uses an analog and digital collage process to create surrealist and often whimsical fairytale-like narratives. The multilayered images are composed using vintage photography and illustration, reproductions of Renaissance painting, her own photos and samplings from commercial photography. She was one of 50 featured artists selected for the 2022 Create! Magazine: The Art Collection Edition and her work was most recently exhibited at Wessling Contemporary Gallery in San Francisco as part of the 2026 Mondo Fauna group show. Her poems have been published in a number of literary journals and anthologies, including Hunger Mountain, Brevity, Poets Eleven, Coffee Poems from World Enough Writers, Stone Gathering and Rattle Magazine. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Learn more about Sharry>

Please note that some articles listed may be subject to a paywall.

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