The Art & Law Program: Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento on Artists Rights, Culture & Justice, and the NBA & NFTs

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The featured image is titled Ahh...Youth! (2015 - ongoing), Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento. Ink jet print. Image: © and TM Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento. All rights reserved.

For more information, please visit the websites for Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento and The Art & Law Program.

0:06  routes taken by students wanting to pursue art law 

1:00 “gatekeepers” of art law

3:00  Sergio Sarmiento’s experience practicing art seriously since 1992, 

3:45 global expansion of art law practice 

4:10 former student in Seoul, Korea applying to law school there to do art law in Korea 

5:00 artists’ reliance on the law

6:00  protecting artist's rights through contract, as opposed to encouraging federal legislation in relation to resale royalties.

7:25  NFTs denied definition as art.    

9:10 reason for picking medium of NFT 

10:25 1970s pet rock 

13:00 1992 undergrad at the University of Texas at El Paso 

14:30 1995 CalArts 

15:25 teaching at University of Southern California 

15:50 focus on the concept of private property and public property

16:15 originally applied to law school as an art project

16:50 springboard for creating The Art & Law Program occurred during law school 

18:20 evolution of The Art & Law Program’s mission since 2010

22:35  skeptical now of art that that attempts or believes that it is critiquing the system

26:40 the necessity of the political mural 

29:40 how his perspective has changed on what is art and its value 

34:00  book project

36:20  National Basketball Association NFTs and terms of service

39:00   Art & Law Coloring Book 

44:20 how culture and justice addressed in Program

45:35 justice shown by example through cases read 

45:50 how justice is defined 

46:10 is justice provisional and bridge 

46:35 if justice is unachievable, is that why people are in a perpetual state of misery

47:00 diversity in Program

48:00 current cultural powers thwarting or facilitating justice 

49:00 museums’ use of their cultural power with social projects 

50:00 if art is everything, then art is nothing. If museums are everything, then museums are nothing. 

50:30  lecturer of The Art & Law Program questioning artist's work about immigration

52:15 plumbing services as art

53:30 acceptance of other forms or types of artistic activity doing social good institutionalizes that practice

54:45 what he would do differently would go back to 1997

56:10 impact he hope that his work, including the work with the Program, makes

56:30 practice as artist without institutional affiliation

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Music by Toulme.

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© Stephanie Drawdy [2026]