The Hoffman Law Firm

06/16/2023

The Supreme Court Got it Right: A Pictorial Guide to Fair Use for “Appropriation” Artists and Other Creatives After Warhol v. Goldsmith

“We live in a country of laws and that copyright law has been able to feed more creation and invention. That incentive has made us who we are. That’s one of the great things about this country – this is not China.”
- Lynn Goldsmith, May 19, 2023, Women’s Wear Daily

On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited landmark decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith. No. 21-869. This was the first Supreme Court case to consider the affirmative defense of fair use to unauthorized copying since Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (1994) in which 2 Live Crew prevailed on its fair use defense of parodying Roy Orbison’s song "Pretty Woman." It is also the first Supreme Court case to deal with visual expression. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 against the Warhol Foundation’s (AWF) claim of the right to license Goldsmith’s copyrighted portrait of the musician Prince without her permission or her name, on the theory of fair use. Fair use is an affirmative defense if the second user of the original expression uses it for purposes including criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.

Not surprisingly, the decision has generated commentary and widespread discussion, including from this author: https://www.hoffmanlawfirm.org/the-art-lawyers-diary-june-2023/

This commentary is written as a response to the opinions expressed by art lawyers, professors of art history, and other friends of the court brief writers in the Warhol camp, which have dominated the art media and the New York Times. They gained only two converts at the Supreme Court, Justice Kagan and Chief Justice Roberts, for their theory that both the First Amendment and the future of art history and creativity are gravely threatened by a decision which does not consider Warhol’s use a transformative use and thus, a fair use.

The New York Times chose to give op-eds both before and after the decision to Andy Warhol scholars, art critics like Blake Gopnik, and Richard Meyer who authored The Supreme Court Is Wrong About Andy Warhol, published on June 5, 2023, who fail to mention copyright’s core rationale of incentivizing creators and that celebrity photographers and photojournalists are not grey shadows but human beings who need to eat. As one commenter to the op-ed put it, “it feels like the NYT is trying to take this surprisingly non-political case and turn it into some statement on the death of art.” It is irrelevant whether Warhol is a good artist, a famous artist, or whether his orange Prince silkscreen is a worthy achievement. What is relevant is that the Copyright Act gives the original author the exclusive right to adapt the copyrighted work.

Theses scholars and art law professors have argued that this decision, because it fails to provide a bright line rule to permit artists to express a new message to the extent of appropriating other copyrighted images, upsets the delicate balance between the Copyright Act and the First Amendment. Of course, there is an inherent tension between the monopoly rights of creators and the First Amendment. That is accommodated by the delicate balance provided by fair use, and that only expression, not ideas or facts, are protected by copyright.

Professor Amy Adler of NYU has been a vocal proponent of the death knell to art and the First Amendment if artists, not only “famous artists,” do not have the right to express themselves and to draw on existing images.

However, artists are not above the law. The Supreme Court has determined that certain limits on free expression which meet certain tests can restrict speech. Thus, artists are not free to copy, defame, utter “fighting words,” yell “fire!” falsely in a theater, or violate the rights of privacy of celebrities or defame individuals and public figures, subject to certain doctrines to accommodate state law conflict with the First Amendment. See comments to the op-ed written by Professor Richard Meyer available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/opinion/supreme-court-andy-warhol.html

Rather than mourn the loss of artistic freedom of expression, the decision is a welcome recalibration of fair use which has been muddled by the expanding notion of “transformative use” by the federal courts, as exemplified in “the famous artist exception,” or “the high-water mark of fair use” in the Second Circuit’s decision in Cariou v. Prince (2013). The Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Campbell, which embraced and enshrined the concept of “transformative use” penned in Judge Pierre N. Leval’s iconic 1990 article in the Harvard Law Review, Toward a Standard of Fair Use, has resulted in a remarkable judicial expansion of the transformative use doctrine which seems to consider virtually any “creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings” as supporting a finding of fair use, drowning out consideration of all other factors. If prior to Campbell, critics argued that the presumption that a commercial use was unfair, skewed the analysis to stifle creativity and the First Amendment, the notion of transformative use embodied in a “different message or artistic style” not only threatened to turn judges into art critics, but threatened to eviscerate the right to create derivative works and reproduce the original work bestowed on creators of original works.

The AWF and its friends of the court argued, and continue to argue, that Warhol’s silkscreen image of Prince has a different meaning or message. By adding new expression to the photograph, AWF says, Warhol made “transformative” use of it. To restrict an artist like Warhol’s ability to express a new message or meaning by copying another artist’s work is, in essence, an impermissible restriction on the artist’s freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court correctly curbs the expansion of fair use and rejects the role of judges as art critics: fair use “is an objective inquiry into what a user does with an original work, not an inquiry into the subjective intent of the user, or into the meaning or impression that an art critic or judge draws from a work.” Even if Warhol had a new message, the first fair use factor instead focuses on whether an allegedly infringing use has a further purpose or different character, which is a matter of degree, and the degree of difference must be weighed against other considerations like commercialism. As portraits of Prince used to depict Prince in magazine stories about Prince, the original photograph and AWF’s copying of it share substantially the same use.

The decision is a narrow one but its underlying reasonings require a court to consider whether the use is commercial and balance that against the claimed use or claim to transformative character or purpose in part to determine whether the use infringes the original artist’s bundle of rights, including the right to reproduce the work and to license derivative works. Use by AWF of the Prince Warhol silkscreens on merchandise and tote bags might will be an infringement, even if sold in the Warhol Museum shop. Because Prince is dead, there is no concern that uses of his image violate his right to privacy, speaking more generally and in defense of the Supreme Court’s opinion, the right to control derivative works and their use involves releases, and rights which do not pass to an appropriator.

As Goldsmith said in an interview for Women’s Wear Daily: “I worked really hard to have the trust, much less the equipment, the studio, the assistants to create what I created. In celebrity portraiture, trust is key to your success or failure. If they see your image on a T-shirt, they think you licensed it when you didn’t. Then you have to spend time tracking it down to show them you didn’t do it. Or if you don’t know they are angry about something you didn’t do, you just know they never hire you again…there were so many ramifications from this subject that I felt I had to stand and fight. If I didn’t, I couldn’t live with myself.”

It is amazing that some commentators appear to be totally clueless that the statute itself requires that a judge consider whether the use is commercial or not for profit. The Supreme Court’s restoration of this fact is welcome and not, as one lawyer opined, a reflection of the growing commercialism of the art world over consideration of the artistic message.

So, what are the implications of the decision? Prior to reading any commentary, I wrote about the legal implications analyzing the decision. As a lawyer consulting with a client on fair use, I asked to see the original image and the secondary use. My advice was, and is, to ask whether they are commenting on the original work, or simply using the second work to “express a new message.” While the Court declines to adopt hard and fast rules requiring a balancing on a case-by-case basis, it is clear that the analysis of factor one involves both a consideration of the preamble in the context a two-part analysis: whether the use is transformative, or simply a substitute for the original, and the commercial nature of the use.

This comment and the Pictorial Guide below is dedicated to Lynn Goldsmith, and the amount of money she spent defending the rights of artists.

“Six-and-a-half years into the legal battle, the American photographer and artist had mortgaged her house and invested more than $2 million defending her copyright of a 1981 photograph of the musician Prince.”
- May 19, 2023, Women’s Wear Daily https://wwd.com/eye/people/lynn-goldsmith-prince-photograph-andy-warhol-supreme-court-interview-1235658276/

Lynn Goldsmith
Ford Foundation
Joyce Kozloff
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
The Studio Museum in Harlem
The New York Times
The New York Times Opinion Section
PERFORMA
RoseLee Goldberg
Esa V. Nickle
Sasha Okshteyn
Job Piston
Art News
The Brooklyn Rail
Art In America
Art in America
The Art Newspaper

05/19/2023

Artists Win in Landmark Supreme Court Copyright Fair Use Case:

The Supreme Court has ruled 7-2 that Andy Warhol has infringed on the copyright of Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who took the image that he used for his famous silkscreen of the musician Prince. In the majority opinion of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, she noted that “Goldsmith’s original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists.”

She focused on the fact that Warhol and Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer whose work he altered, were both engaged in the commercial enterprise of licensing images of Prince to magazines. Of the four fair use factors a court is meant to consider in determining whether the original work can be used without the approval of the copyright owner under the doctrine of fair use, the Warhol Foundation on its appeal urged consideration only of the first factor and whether Warhol’s appropriation was transformative. The Supreme Court held it was not.

“To hold otherwise would potentially authorize a range of commercial copying of photographs, to be used for purposes that are substantially the same as those of the originals,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.

Notwithstanding the doom and gloom by art critic writers like Blake Gopnik, foreseeing the end of art history if Goldsmith won, the decision corrects the erroneous carve out by the Second Circuit for “famous artists” who appropriate the works of other artists. Second Circuit cases like Cariou v. Prince (2013) allowed piracy to masquerade under a banner of transformative use when the only harm is payment of the customary license fee. The Court’s decision reaffirms the Second Circuit’s decision in Ringgold v. BET (1997), as consistent with its earlier fair use decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose (1994) (Ringgold prevailed against a fair use defense because BET had used the poster of her work "Church Picnic" as set dressing, precisely for the purpose she licensed her artwork).

03/01/2023

I am pleased to announce the publication of my latest Art Lawyer's Diary on One Art Nation, focused on the intellectual feat that is Sharjah Biennial 15. It provides a rich tapestry of artists who use history, memory and archives to create a sense of meaning, framework of understanding and plan of action to establish identity and correct injustices.

It is available at the following link: https://www.oneartnation.com/the-art-lawyers-diary-sharjah-art-foundation-brings-together-over-150-artists-and-collectives-for-sharjah-biennial-15/

Sharjah Art Foundation

Thinking Historically in the Present (February 7 – June 11, 2023) Sharjah is the United Arab Emirates’ third largest emirate with coastline on both the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman and known appropriately as the cultural and intellectual center of the UAE. I had never been to the Sharjah Bienni...

02/13/2023

Paris: A Moveable Feast

I can think of no more appropriate quote than that of Ernest Hemingway’s from his classic memoir of his life as a young journalist in Paris during its exuberant period of artistic life and creativity in the 1920s: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris … then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

The exhibitions — Mickalene Thomas: Avec Monet, on view at the Musée de l'Orangerie until 2/6/2023 and Monet - Mitchell, on view at the Fondation Louis Vuitton until 2/27202 — create an unprecedented "dialogue" between the works of exceptional artists Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), Mickalene Thomas (1971-) and Claude Monet (1840-1926).

Mickalene Thomas has cultivated a distinct visual vocabulary of Black erotica, Black sexuality, and Black q***r aesthetics centered around leisure, joy and thought. Thomas revisits her artist's residency at Monet's home in Giverny, France, in 2011 and created new site-specific works to continue her dialogue with Monet using her interpretation of dejeuner sur herbe to create complex landscapes that subvert notions of beauty and femininity.

The Musée de l'Orangerie was particularly appropriate given not only the reference in Thomas’s work to art historical figures, especially Monet, but the exhibition of the permanent collection of the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume Collection. Seeing the visibility of Marie Laurencin with Thomas was also a thrill. During the early years of the 20th century, Laurencin was an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde. A member of both the circle of Pablo Picasso, and Cubists associated with Salon des Indépendants (1910-1911) and the Salon d'Automne (1911-1912), her art reflected her life, her "balletic wraiths" and "sidesaddle Amazons" identifying with her own sexuality.

Thomas also collaborated and helped produce Dior’s Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture show. Dior has opened one of the largest fashion museums in Spring 2022, DIOR Galerie.

Faith Ringgold: Black is Beautiful, on view at the Musee Picasso until 7/2/2023, is not to miss. Faith Ringgold and her daughters first visited Paris in the late 1960s. As Michele Wallace, Faith’s daughter, recounts, there were few African Americans visiting the Louvre, and as such, they were an attraction, treated with the utmost respect, not given the negative image of the treatment of African Americans in the USA in 1968. The exhibition is a truncated version of the fabulous retrospective, Faith Ringgold: American People, at the New Museum. Ringgold is the first living artist to be exhibited at the Musee Picasso. Unfortunately, Picasso’s Guernica once its return by MoMA cannot leave Spain, however the appropriateness of the positioning of Ringgold to that work of Picasso is obvious. Don’t miss this exhibition.

07/06/2022

The Art Lawyer's Diary - July 2022

The Art Lawyer is alive and well. Apologies to my readers that events on so many levels have prevented the Art Lawyer's Diary from circulating. Thus, it is not for lack of the events, involvement in them or the need for commentary and action.

Our lives are spinning from events which shatter traditional boundaries on every level, and the crumbling of our traditional institutions to deal with setting new parameters of safety for us as individuals and as communities is manifest. To mention only two examples-- (i) the war in Ukraine -crumbling expectations of the post-World War II international order and its ability through the UN and the Security Council to prevent naked aggression to acquire territory; (ii) Roe v Wade’s overturning after fifty years on some newly minted theory of power to the people through the exercise of their elected state representatives at the same time the people’s right to live in a gun free, safe environment is thwarted by the US Supreme Court. The latter example causing this institution to have lost all respect as the weight in the balance of power to protect our fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution from mob rule currently channeled through voter manipulation and redistricting to prevent the minority from legitimate voice in those state legislatures.

No wonder that an art lawyer ponders the role of art in this time of global crisis where it is not clear how, whether or when the arc of justice will bend. Not surprising that two very different global impact art events pose the question of the role of art and the artist to deal with the planet’s global crisis.

A request to act as guest writer for One Art Nation about the Venice Biennale and documenta fifteen permitted me the time to reflect on these issues.

My article is available to read at this link: https://www.oneartnation.com/venice-art-biennale/

I think it is important to understanding the current art scene and the myriad approaches which, while in some instances appear superficially at odds on another, on a deeper level show a dissatisfaction with things as they are and a need to return to works of the mind, the spirit, the imagination and non-Western methods of dealing with a planet on the verge of extinction without change.

09/17/2021

Adam Pendelton, Who is Queen? paired with Shigeko Kubota” Liquid Reality” could not have a more appropriate energy to begin the fall art season. At the opening on September 18, below, see me, Sergio, and Adam Pendleton. This is a period of renewal and rebirth. The day after Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of new beginning, these two artists of different generations and backgrounds share important and related messages as we immerge afresh from this period of trauma and transformation. Pendleton teaches us empathy and to understand the power of dialogue and politics to bring about positive change. We need to learn to experience the other and embrace it in this new era. Similarly, Shigeko embraces the latest technology and how it can be used to transform old ways of seeing and doing. Both teach us that embracing the new and unknown with empathy and energy are powerful steps to enable us to move forward as a society.

09/22/2020

I was honored to be featured in the first week of September in Art Talks podcast #32 of Cerebral Women! The series, hosted by Phyllis Hollis, an art enthusiast and proactive trustee of numerous institutions, is passionate about supporting and promoting Black Artists, Artists of Color, and women in the art world. Other artists and art world figures who have been featured include Carrie Mae Weems, Derrick Adams, Odili Donald Odita, Pauline Willis, and M. Florine Démosthène. As host and founder, Phyllis established Cerebral Women as a platform presenting works of art and aphorisms to provoke visual and intellectual stimulation.

Hollis’ provocative and intelligent questions matched with her mellifluous voice makes listening to the podcasts of artists like Weems, Adams, Odita, and others with a glass of wine a splendid opportunity while we shelter at home.

My podcast episode focuses on my amazing career as an art lawyer and provides useful insights to artists on significant copyright cases I litigated as well as artist-gallery relations and other important subjects of interest for artists as they navigate the ever more complex art world, particularly during COVID-19.

My podcast episode can be found at:

https://soundcloud.com/user-2654912886

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cerebral-women-podcast/id1496034243

https://open.spotify.com/show/2rjq5IGo8WjgzRX2z53ats

I also encourage you to listen to other episodes of Cerebral Women. You can find them at https://www.cerebralwomen.com/podcast-episodes/ and more information about the series at https://www.cerebralwomen.com/about/.

Episode Thirty-Two features Art Lawyer Barbara T. Hoffman. Her firm, 'The Hoffman Law Firm',  has provided innovative solutions to creative clients for decades worldwide.

Barbara T. Hoffman, principal, is a pre-eminent arts, cultural heritage and cultural institution lawyer in New York City providing transactional advice and litigation services to the domestic and international arts and cultural community. Her more than thirty-five years in the field of art law, representing artists, museums, collectors, artist and other charitable foundations, galleries and foreign governments has given her wide expertise on matters involving art, antiques and cultural property transactions, including art gallery and auction house consignments, gifts of art, copyright and artist's rights, and non-profit issues of governance and conflict of interest. She is a pioneer in the field of public art and developed, for the New York City Bar Association, the model contract for the field. She has represented a majority of renowned artists working in the public realm with projects worldwide involving large scale private and public scales from memorials to AIA award-winning artist-architect collaborations from Battery Park to Shanghai and points in between. She is included in New York Magazine's Best Lawyers for 2010 - 2011, 2012, Marquis Who's Who and Super Lawyers (2010-2016), and the Wall Street Journal Best Women Lawyers in New York (2016). She is a Fellow of the American Bar Association.
Contact: Barbara Hoffman 
[email protected]

Link in bio

07/02/2020

Barbara T Hoffman, an art lawyer, who led ASMPNY's
"Know Your Rights: Copyright Law For Photographers"
provides us with her reaction regarding recent court rulings and the ongoing saga of Instagram and copyright!

A SOCIAL MEDIA VICTORY IN THE COURTS FOR PHOTOJOURNALISTS
by Barbara T Hoffman
June 25th, 2020

The original finding in the 2018 case Sinclair v. Ziff Davis, LLC, and Mashable, Inc was a blow to photographers. In 2016, Mashable republished National Geographic photographer Stephanie Sinclair's photograph without her consent and permission in an article by embedding the photo on from Instagram. SDNY Judge Kimby Wood previously dismissed Sinclair's Second Amended Complaint, finding that Mashable had used Sinclair's photograph pursuant to a valid sublicense from Instagram, and that using Instagram’s embedding API was not infringement.

In a similar case brought in 2020, McGucken v. Newsweek LLC, a photographer posted on his Instagram account a photograph of an ephemeral lake that had appeared in Death Valley, California. The following day, Newsweek published an article about the ephemeral lake, embedding the photographer's Instagram post of the lake as part of the article. The photographer sued Newsweek for copyright infringement.

Judge Failla found on June 4, 2020 that though Instagram's various terms and policies clearly foresee the possibility of entities such as Newsweek using web embeds to share other users' content, none of them expressly grants a sublicense to those who embed publicly posted content.

Ars Tecnica, in an article with the headline "Instagram just threw users of its embedding API under the bus," reported that in answer to an email it sent following Judge Failla’s decision, a company spokesperson for Facebook (which owns Instagram) has stated, on the record, that Instagram's terms of use do not grant permission to users of its embedding API to display embedded images on their websites without additional permissions from the copyright owners.

On June 24th, Judge Kimba Wood granted Sinclair’s motion to have the Court reconsider and reverse the motion to dismiss her Second Amended Complaint for copyright infringement. On the basis of Judge Failla’s decision, Judge Wood found insufficient evidence that Instagram exercised its right to grant a sublicense to Mashable.

Judge Wood found that while the platform’s policy might be interpreted to grant API users the right to use the API to embed the public content of other Instagram users, that is not the only interpretation to which that term is susceptible, quoting Judge Failla in McGucken v. Newsweek. The Court then relied on Agence France Press v. Morel (2010), a case litigated by Barbara Hoffman, for the proposition that the platform’s policy terms are not sufficiently clear to warrant dismissal of Sinclair’s claims on a motion to dismiss.

While the good news is that Instagram’s Terms of Service are no longer seen as granting rights to an embedded image, it is still unfortunate that the status of embedding in the Second Circuit remains unclear, with Judge Wood and Judge Failla finding no infringement for embedding, and Judge Forrest finding that embedding itself constitutes copyright infringement (Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, LLC).

06/16/2020

Highlights from my June 12th's The Art Lawyer's Diary newsletter, “Witness to Murder, a Movement, and Democracy on the Brink,” a cornucopia of suggestions, reactions, and artistic responses to this historical moment, in which we must not forget to be silent is to be complicit. See the full newsletter on our website:
https://www.hoffmanlawfirm.org/blog-and-news/the-art-lawyers-diary-june-2020/

This Art Lawyer's Diary is inspired to speak out by the recent events regarding systemic racism and inequality in our country, provoked by the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, as well as the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, such recent deaths almost overshadowing the horrors of the stark inequality revealed by the disproportionate number of deaths of African Americans from COVID-19, and the higher unemployment rates among African Americans.

Rayshard Brooks was murdered, shot in the back by a policeman, having done nothing more than fallen asleep in his car in a drive-in lane at Wendy's. As the district attorney said, there is no reason that their initial encounter - the officer's cam-corder shows twenty-two seconds of courteous conversation - should have ended this way. This incident supports the idea that the mentality and consciousness of policing today is ill-suited to the problems we have.

That this initially peaceful encounter turned violent and ended with Rayshard Brooks being shot in the back is the result of sociological and psychological factors: the stereotyping of African American men as criminals; the trauma and harm of lawlessness and systemic racism for 400 years experienced by African Americans; and in the last weeks, witnessed almost daily in the media, a law-and-order president who does not understand the absurdity and consequences of a policy to “dominate the streets with compassion,” the very notion of compassion being at odds with domination. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest police brutality during the national anthem, that was compassion in action, while domination in action is the knee in the neck of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin, and the shot in the back of Rayshard Brooks by police officer Garrett Rolfe.

These actions are the result of the racist mindset of police who wanted to dominate. It is for that reason, of the police's broken mentality, that there have been calls to defund the police as it currently exists, and to substitute for systemic violence a communal mentality of compassion, empathy and love.

As Trevor Noah said, ““People always say the same thing: ‘If you didn’t do that, you’d still be alive.’ They say this s**t all the time. ‘If you didn’t do that.’ But the truth is, the ‘ifs’ keep on changing… There’s one common thread beyond all the ‘ifs.’ If you weren’t black, maybe you’d still be alive.”

This is a time to reimagine our future as Americans, going forward together to build a just and inclusive society. This newsletter is a call to action. If you find it useful as a resource, pass it on. If you can’t hit the streets, donate and vote.

The illustration below is by Derrick Adams, born out of his collaboration with award-winning restaurateur, philanthropist and food activist Marcus Samuelsson, who shared the image on his Instagram, writing:

“The Black community is battling two pandemics right now — coronavirus and racism. My friend and I created Take 3 to act as a guide for keeping your head straight and pushing through. The steps we feel are most imperative are:

MOURN - COVID-19 has killed Black folks 3x more than anyone else. Not only that, we continue to see race related killings and unjust police brutality. What we’re going through is a travesty. It’s extremely important that you give yourself time to grieve.

REFLECT - Think about how we got here. Consider the 400+ years of injustice that lead us to this place. Lastly, think about how we all as people and as communities can create positive change for ourselves and our country.

COMPASSION - Empathy and love for all people is a must, especially during these trying times. Think about what you can do for someone else — we have to be a positive influence for our family, our neighbors, and our community.”

See my 2018 Art Lawyer’s Diary newsletter “A Call to Action and an Opening” for more on Derrick Adams’ work. That edition had as its dual inspiration a screening of the film “13th” by Ava DuVernay, and the opening the same evening of Derrick's exhibition “Sanctuary” at the Museum of Arts and Design. https://www.hoffmanlawfirm.org/blog-and-news/the-art-lawyers-diary-feb/

More thoughts and resources from the newsletter:

“The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration,” by Isabel Wilkerson.

Don’t miss “13th,” Ava DuVernay’s powerful documentary explaining how we got from the 13th amendment to mass incarceration by way of consistently branding African American men from its enactment to the present as criminals, and “Just Mercy,” the timely docu-drama about injustice in the criminal justice system and the efforts of civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, to defend Black Americans on death row. Stars Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Brie Larson. It streams free during June: https://www.pennlive.com/life/2020/06/just-mercy-how-to-watch-the-movie-based-on-bryan-stevenson-a-civil-rights-lawyer-is-free-to-stream-in-june.html

“Law and Order Is Not the Rule of Law”: As 13th makes clear, law and order has been a frequent rallying cry to various degrees by numerous US presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon, to brand Black men as criminals. Trump's law and order tactics are straight from Nixon's playbook, including his references to the "silent majority."

“Act to Support and Increase Voting, and Combat Voter Suppression”: See entertainment lawyer and producer Laverne Berry’s “Capturing the Flag,” an award-winning documentary film.

Two other organizations that are important in terms of both voting activism and contributions are the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, "committed to ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination against people with convictions, mostly African Americans," and One for Democracy, a collaboration between our country’s leading donors focused on defeating Donald Trump and strengthening our democracy.

Chester Higgins, describing his photograph below, writes: "for me, [this image] illustrates the State of Affairs where too often African Americans exist behind the borders of indifference and extensive hatred. Congress needs to pass laws that take away the immunity that police have for lethal force."

"Omar Tate’s Honeysuckle pop-up project is revolution in a takeout box": I celebrated Juneteenth at the James Beard House with Omar last year along with other noted African American chefs. This year I celebrate Juneteenth with Performa live on Friday June 19th at 12 pm EST, an Instagram live talk between artist Sanford Biggers and chief curator RoseLee Goldberg. A screening of Biggers' Performa 07 Commission, The Somethin' Suite, will follow.

“The Looting of SoHo and the SoHo Artist Response”: see the images below from the Art 2♥SoHo project, which brought together over 100 artists last weekend and this weekend to paint the boarded-up storefronts in SoHo.

“The Instinct to Explore Belongs to No Race”: I have been a member of the Explorers Club since 1985, women having only been admitted since 1982. The original founding members in 1905, were noted Arctic explorers, all white and all male. Robert Peary was one of the original members. He and African American explorer Matthew Henson travelled together on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years. When they returned from their voyage to the North Pole, Peary was given the credit, and received the highest metal of the Explorers Club, the Explorers Medal, in 1914. Though Henson was the first to stand on the geographic North Pole, he was not recognized or celebrated for decades, except in the African American community. Henson did not receive commensurate recognition until receiving, in 1944, the award ironically named the Peary Polar Expedition Medal. In 2000, the National Geographic Society posthumously awarded Matthew Henson its highest honor—the Hubbard Medal.

On June 12 Vanessa O’Brien, American/British explorer and mountaineer, and a fellow member and fellow of the Explorers Club, became the first woman to reach the Earth’s highest and lowest points. After reaching the top of Everest in 2012, Vanessa successfully completed a submersible dive with Victor Vescovo to the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the world’s oceans. Vanessa hopes to inspire women to take on new challenges in non-traditional fields, including STEM. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

The diversity of institutions supporting change right now is uplifting. Live at Lincoln Center is doing amazing programming right now, tying present events to the history of the civil rights movement. See their website for Freedom by Celisse, a song Celisse wrote in July 2016 following the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, which remains a rallying cry to fight systemic injustice, and Soundtrack '63, a live, multimedia musical performance about the African-American experience in America. http://lincolncenter.org/lincoln-center-at-home/show/soundtrack-3963-957

See also Asia Society's Diversity and Inclusion program: https://asiasociety.org/global-talent-initiatives/2020-global-talent-diversity-inclusion-virtual-symposium

Image Credits: Illustration by Derrick Adams; digital release poster of “13th”; digital release poster of “Just Mercy”; photograph by Chester Higgins, titled "State of Affairs," 2020; photo of Omar Tate, the Philadelphia Inquirer, by Clay Williams; photos of anonymous artist-activists’ work in response to looting in SoHo last weekend and this weekend; a photograph of Matthew Henson speaking to Explorers Club members, as published in Ebony Magazine in 1947, the historical African American equivalent to Life magazine; a photo of fellow Explorers Club member Vanessa O'Brien, after her successful expedition on June 12th, making her the first woman to scale Mt. Everest, the highest peak, and to dive to the deepest part of the ocean, Challenger Deep.