Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento

Very excited to give the annual Myriam Bellazoug Memorial Lecture at the Yale University School of Architecture. The lecture, "Law Ends," will deal with the role of rules and regulations in relation to culture and social interactions. The lecture will take place on Dec. 1, 2016. One reason I'm excited about this lecture is that it gives me an opportunity to reach a different audience with some ideas that have been percolating in my courses and seminars, i.e.- my head. Let's just hope it makes sense...or not.

Aiko Cuneo, daughter of Ruth Asawa, with Sergio Munoz Sarmiento at the opening of Ruth Asawa’s Objects & Apparitions exhibition at Christie's, May 6, 2013. Photographer unknown.

Dean of Cornell Law School and Professor of Law, Eduardo Peñalver (right) and Sergio Munoz Sarmiento discussing property law, disobedience and contemporary art at the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Symposium, which was held on March 18, 2017 at Cornell Law School. 

Joan Kee in conversation with Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento to celebrate the launch of Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America by Joan Kee (February 2019). This event was co-sponsored by Cornell Law School.

Getting ready for a copyright and appropriation lecture, PowerPoint is ready.
 

This is what a typical seminar looks like: court opinions, law review articles, artist writings, as well as art historical and critical texts. Not pictured are the images viewed in relation to our seminar topic. I love these nights.

Sergio Munoz Sarmiento and Mary Kelly at the original Whitney Museum Independent Study Program studios at 384 Broadway in New York City. This is a scanned image of a Polarod taken during Kelly’s lecture on Lacan, circa 1997/1998.

How did KISS influence what I do? Read about it in my "Sarmiento on Sarmiento" interview for the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, which you can access via this site on my Words page.

"The artist is always right." - Donald Judd

With California Institute of the Arts Art School Dean, Thomas Lawson.

I spent a couple of years traveling to Detroit to research the Mike Kelley project, Mobile Homestead, and its relationship to the wonderful space that is Detroit.

Giving a talk at Cornell Law School on property, disobedience, and Conceptual Art. Great conversations with Dean Peñalver and the students of the law school. Oh, that's supposed to read, 2017, not 2015.

Sergio Munoz Sarmiento and his art project at the original Whitney Museum Independent Study Program studios at 384 Broadway in New York City. This is a scanned image of a Polarod taken in Sarmiento’s studio, circa 1997/1998, during Sarmiento’s installation for the open studios.

2014 Art & Law Program fellows Aliza Schwarz and Erica Love with Program alum and faculty, Lauren van Haaften-Schick (2014).

A seven hour seminar on art and law at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The only reason we stopped was so that we could continue our convo over steaks and Malbec (2014).

Not boring, and not limited. Fun times.

With Christopher Wool at Christopher Wool's opening at Gagosian gallery (London) (2025). Hat by me.

Promises of the Commons: Authorship, Copyright and Access in Contemporary Art. One-day seminar, organized by Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, Curator for the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros of the Fundacion Cisneros. Buenos Aires, Argentina (November 2013).

I'm not kidding when I say this seminar lasted seven hours. If we had had some Malbec wine I think we'd still be there.

Sensei Taichi Hayashi, who challenged me in ‘88 and changed my life. A great teacher and friend.

With Magulang Na Guro, Dan Inosanto. Fall 2025, Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts, Marina del Rey.

Installation shot of my open studio at Denniston Hill. I spent the summer of 2012 thinking of and making work based on Americana and the concept of appropriation. Here's one shot as an example (pun intended).

In 2016, the Program collaborated with Cornell Law School and the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space on a major art & law conference on the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. This conference examined Gonzalez-Torres’ work in relation to collecting and curating, as well as the legal doctrines of property, intellectual property and contractual agreements. This conference took place at the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space in Miami, Florida in February of 2016.

Confounding the occupational divides between art and legal practices, in Persona Ficta, Sarmiento will perform free, one-on-one legal consultations for artists, effectively bringing his office and practice to CCS Bard.

At his MoMA memorial (2013).

My drum set in my drum studio Austin, Texas (2022).

And probably the most meaningful one. Who would have thought?

Which contained my essay, Cariou v. Prince: Toward a Theory of Aesthetic-Judicial Judgments, co-authored with Lauren van Haaften-Schick. You can access the essay in my Words page on this site.

With Crhistoph Büchel, Art Basel 2015.

Where the Art & Law Program retreats at the end of every term (barring bad snow, of course). 

A portable and traveling art project archiving how artist and legal practitioners and scholars define, "art & law." 

Yale School of Architecture Dean Deborah Berke introducing me and my talk, Law Ends, presented at the Yale School of Architecture (December 1, 2016).

Presenting two talks on art and law at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (April 5, 2017). Great audience and super smart students. Loved it!

In a wonderful Spanish restaurant with Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro after his curated exhibition, Mario Pedroza: On the Affective Nature of Form at the Museo Reina Sofía (April, 2017).

Aesthetics and Law Symposium at the Rhode Island School of Design, March 2016

Announcement for a couple of my presentations at Virginia Commonwealth University on art law and culture in the 21st Century.

Leading a seminar on copyright for the Bronx Museum’s Artists In the Marketplace program (April 2019). [Image courtesy of Mario Torres and the Bronx Museum].

Keller Easterling, Mary Ellen Carroll, and Sergio Munoz Sarmiento discussing art, architecture and law during The Legal Medium symposium at Yale Law School (February, 2015).

Speaking on behalf of Swiss artist, Christoph Büchel, regarding Büchel’s Prototypes art project.

Sculptural additions (El Paso, Texas. Ca. 2000)

Can You Have an Art Exhibition Without Art? Triple Candie Under Oath. Triple Candie in conversation with Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. Detroit, MI (April 2014).

A Day at the Courtroom, Panel on piracy, copyright, and publications with Lionel Bentley, Prodromos Tsiavos, and Sergio Munoz Sarmiento at The Showroom, London, England, UK (June 2013)

Sergio Munoz Sarmiento lecture on Key Legal Issues for Artists at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY (2014).

School of Visual Arts poster (2015).

Collective (Dis)Engagement. April 5th, 2014. Panel discussion with Mariam Ghani, Sean Jacobs, Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, Laura Raicovich and Sonja Srdanovic, moderated by Nitin Sawhney. Part of the Vera List Center / Art in General conference What Now? Collaboration and Collectivity.

My father, Sergio Hugo Muñoz Sr.

(December 7, 1941 - December 8, 2024)

Me, right before the opening of the Whitney Museum’s ISP Program, Open Studios, May 1998. This was at the former location at 384 Broadway in NYC. I had the biggest studio. Lots of great memories from that place and studio, including studio visits with Mary Kelly, Laura Mulvey, Hal Foster, and Benjamin Buchloh.