Against the Law
Files
Description
Is MSCHF an art collective, a brand, or a stealth legal project? The answer is yes. I could probably find a MSCHF work as a case study for just about any topic I teach in my Art Law course at the NYU School of Law, where the collective has earned some key spots on my syllabus. They raise copyright violation to an art form, wreak havoc with trademark law, churn out forgeries, and relentlessly defy bedrock legal assumptions about creativity, authorship, and the art market. In fact, I would argue that while the collective is known for making art out of consumer products and consumer products out of art, law is just as much their medium as art and brands are. This essay, my contribution to the collective’s first book, Made by MSCHF, focuses on just one area where MSCHF lands on the wrong side of the law: moral rights law. As I argue, moral rights law was designed to protect art but does so enshrining a vision of art and artists that’s disappearing: the immutable masterpiece that must be preserved, the genius author/father who knows what’s best for the obedient work, the realm of art as transcendent. In MSCHF’s practice, destruction is just another tool of creativity, the author role is up for grabs, and the work is just another drop. As they move seamlessly between art and brand, between shows at the Perrotin gallery and drops of fucked-up sneakers, MSCHF exposes the hopelessly retrograde boundary that moral rights law depends on between art and commerce.
First Page
42
Source Publication
Made by MSCHF
Source Editors/Authors
Lukas Bentel, Kevin Wiesner, Karen Wong
Publication Date
3-6-2025
Publisher
Phaidon Press
Recommended Citation
Amy M. Adler,
Against the Law,
Made by MSCHF
42
(2025).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2144
