艺术法律师、亚洲艺术法律市场和 NFT ——Laurens Kasteleijn 专访
As a former art gallery director and corporate M&A lawyer, Mr Kasteleijn is the founder and managing director of Art Law Services, a boutique consultancy firm based in Hong Kong and Amsterdam. Mr Kasteleijn has given lectures on art law at various institutions such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in Hong Kong & London.
作为前艺术画廊总监和企业并购律师，Kasteleijn先生是 Art Law Services 的创始人和常务董事，该公司是一家位于香港和阿姆斯特丹的精品咨询公司。Kasteleijn先生曾在香港中文大学以及香港和伦敦的苏富比艺术学院等多个机构做艺术法讲座。
1. Art law is a particularly niche area of law, so let’s get started with a brief introduction of art law to our readers. From your perspective, what is art law and what do art lawyers do?
1. 艺术法是一个特别小众的法律领域，所以让我们先向读者简单介绍一下艺术法。在您看来，什么是艺术法，艺术法律师是做什么的？
In my opinion, there is no “art law”. The “art law” is in fact a combination of different laws including contract, torts, and criminal law etc. The reason why it is called “art law” is because it relates to the art industry.
在我看来，“艺术法”并不存在。“艺术法”实际上是合同法、侵权法、刑法等不同法律的结合，之所以称为“艺术法”，是因为它涉及到艺术行业。
As art lawyers, we serve the following types of clients:
The creators of the artworks, i.e., the artists.
The buyers and sellers of the artworks, including galleries, auction houses, art collectors etc.
Other service providers, including the art fair organizers, shipping companies, investment funds, companies offering art-backed loan etc.
作为艺术法律师，我们为以下类型的客户提供服务：
艺术品的创作者，即艺术家。
艺术品的买卖双方，包括画廊、拍卖行、艺术品收藏家等。
其他服务提供商，包括艺术展主办方、航运公司、投资基金、提供艺术品抵押贷款的公司等。
During my practice, I provide legal services and business consultancy services. For the legal services part, I help client with cases related to contracts, restitutions, torts, and IP. For the business consultancy services part, I provide business advice to the negotiation and financing of art transactions, and I also help the galleries to set up branches in foreign countries.
在执业期间，我提供法律服务和商业咨询服务。在法律服务方面，我帮助客户处理与合同、原物返还、侵权和知识产权相关的案件。在商业咨询服务方面，我为艺术品交易的谈判和融资提供商业建议，并帮助画廊在国外设立分支机构。
2. Why do you choose to focus on art law?
2. 您为什么选择专注于艺术法？
My grandfather was an artist. When I was a kid, I often stayed in my grandfather’s studio, watching him making artworks. My parents love art too, and they always took me to art galleries and exhibitions. These childhood experiences made me interested in art. Before setting up my own business consultancy firm in 2013, I ran galleries in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Running art galleries gave me ample opportunities to deal with artists, auction houses, art dealers, and collectors. These experiences give me valuable insights of the art industry. In 2013, I founded Art Law Services, a boutique consultancy firm based in Hong Kong and Amsterdam, providing art related business and legal services.
我的祖父是一位艺术家。当我还是个孩子的时候，我经常呆在祖父的工作室里，看着他创作艺术品。我的父母也喜欢艺术，他们总是带我去美术馆和展览。这些童年经历使我对艺术产生了兴趣。在 2013 年成立自己的咨询公司之前，我在上海和香港经营画廊。经营画廊给了我很多与艺术家、拍卖行、艺术品商人和收藏家打交道的机会。这些经历让我对艺术行业有了宝贵的见解。2013年，我创立了Art Law Services，一家位于香港和阿姆斯特丹的精品咨询公司，提供艺术相关的商业和法律服务。
3. You have a tremendous amount of experience of working in art law industry in Hong Kong and Amsterdam. You also ran art gallery in Shanghai before. What do you think are the differences between the Dutch art law industry and the Chinese art law industry?
3. 您在香港和阿姆斯特丹的艺术法行业拥有丰富的工作经验。您之前也在上海经营过画廊。您认为荷兰艺术法行业与中国艺术法行业有何不同？
During World War II, the Nazi Germany confiscated a lot of artworks from, among others, art dealers in the Netherlands. After the war, the Dutch government found it hard to find the original owners of the artworks taken, so the artworks were held in the national museums of the Netherlands. The original owners, after finding that their artworks were in the museums, started to claim back their artworks from the government. Therefore, there are a lot of restitution of artworks cases in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is also a country that is rich in art culture. It has the biggest and most prestigious art fair in the world, the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF). It also has the only Court of Arbitration for Art in the world, which is set up a few years ago.
二战期间，纳粹德国没收了许多艺术品，其中很多来自于荷兰的艺术品商人。战后，荷兰政府很难找到被盗艺术品的原主人，因此这些艺术品被收藏在荷兰的国家博物馆中。原主人在发现他们的艺术品在博物馆后，开始向政府索回他们的艺术品。因此，在荷兰出现了很多艺术品归还案件。荷兰也是一个艺术文化丰富的国家。它拥有世界上最大、最负盛名的艺术博览会——欧洲美术博览会（TEFAF）。几年前，荷兰还设立了世界上唯一一个艺术仲裁院。
过去 10 至 15 年间，中国艺术产业蓬勃发展，而香港凭借其优惠的税收政策，一直是亚洲最重要的艺术中心。然而，最近香港的政策变得有些不可预测，许多外国画廊和艺术品商人正在转向更安全的法域。首尔目前是亚洲艺术市场的一颗冉冉升起的新星，与新加坡等城市相比，它在地理上更接近中国大陆，而与东京等城市相比，它的艺术市场更为开放。许多知名画廊都在首尔开设分支机构。
4. NFT art is getting lots of attention in the art world. What challenges do NFT art pose on art lawyers?
NFT 艺术品在艺术界受到广泛关注。NFT 艺术品给艺术法律师带来了哪些挑战？
NFT stands for non-fungible token. The meaning of non-fungible is that it is distinguishable from others. By contrast, physical money and cryptocurrencies are fungible, meaning that they are not distinguishable from one and another. The creation of NFT art goes like this. First, an artist creates a piece of artwork (paintings, music, videos etc.). Then, this artwork is digitized and written into the blockchain, and a piece of NFT art is created. Therefore, when you are buying the NFT art, you are not buying the artwork itself, but buying the piece of code that is written into the blockchain.
NFT 即不可替代的代币（non-fungible token）。Non-fungible 的含义是某物品可以与其他物品区分开来（即不可相互替代）。相比之下，实物货币和加密货币是可相互替代的，这意味着它们与同类间无法相互区分。一个NFT艺术品的诞生流程如下。首先，艺术家创作一件艺术品（绘画、音乐、视频等）。然后，这幅艺术品被数字化并写入区块链，从而创造出一件 NFT 艺术品。因此，当您购买 NFT 艺术品时，您购买的不是艺术品本身，而是购买写入区块链的代码。
NFT can be very attractive for artists since it can be programmed with royalty features, so that artists could earn royalties for every resale of the NFT art in the marketplace. NFT is also very attractive for NFT trading platforms like OpenSea, since they are charging “gas fee” (like transaction fee) for every transaction conducted on the platform.
NFT 对艺术家来说非常有吸引力，因为它可以通过编程加入版税功能，使得艺术家可以在NFT 艺术品的每一次转售中赚取版税。NFT 对 OpenSea 等 NFT 交易平台也非常有吸引力，因为它们对平台上进行的每笔交易都收取“燃气费”（类似于交易费）。
The NFT art raises copyright issues, since a lot of buyers think that they are purchasing the artwork itself, but they are in fact buying the metadata associated with the work. The original creator of the artwork may still retain the right to copy, distribute and modify the artwork. Also, it is unclear which are the governing jurisdictions of the NFT transaction.
NFT 艺术品可能引发版权问题，因为很多买家认为他们是在购买艺术品本身，但实际上他们只是在购买与该作品相关的元数据。艺术品的原始创作者仍可能保留复制、分发和修改艺术品的权利。此外，目前尚不明确NFT 交易中的管辖法域是哪些。
Although NFT art market is very popular nowadays, I tend to believe that it is a bubble. I bought my first NFT art half a year ago to see the whole process of NFT artwork transaction. Surprisingly, one week after my purchase, someone offered me three times of my original purchasing price to buy my NFT artwork. This NFT art bubble reminds me of the market for Chinese contemporary art. About 20 years ago, the market of Chinese contemporary art was very popular, and people were trading Chinese contemporary artwork in a highly inflated price. This bubble burst a couple years later, and some people were left with many of these artworks, which were all purchased at a high price, without any market to sell them.
虽然现在 NFT 艺术市场非常火爆，但我倾向于认为它是一个泡沫。半年前我买了自己的第一件 NFT 艺术品，以了解NFT 艺术品交易的全过程。令人惊讶的是，在我购买一周后，有人出三倍于我最初购买的价格来购买我的 NFT 艺术品。这个 NFT 艺术品泡沫让我想起了中国当代艺术的市场。大约20年前，中国当代艺术市场非常火爆，人们以高价交易中国当代艺术品。几年后这个泡沫破灭了，一些人留下了很多这样的艺术品，这些艺术品都是高价购买的，但没有任何市场可以出售。
5. What advice would you give to law students who want to practice art law?
5. 对于想从事艺术法的法律学生，您有什么建议？
I think the first thing is to get some knowledge and insights of the art industry. A good place to start is the art gallery. As I mentioned, working in the gallery can give you opportunities to deal with different types of parties in the art industry, including dealers, artists, auction houses and so on. Auction houses and museums are also good places to start, but they may be a bit closed off compared with art galleries, since they only dealt with part of the art transaction processes.
我认为首先需要对艺术行业有一些了解和见解。画廊是一个很好的切入点。正如我先前提到，在画廊工作可以让你有机会与艺术行业中不同人群打交道，包括艺术品商人、艺术家、拍卖行等。拍卖行和博物馆也是不错的切入点，但与画廊相比，它们可能有点封闭，因为它们只涉及艺术品交易的部分流程。
Some people may think that one must have professional art background before practicing art law. I do not think so. Art is not rocket science. The more important thing is that you should have a keen interest in the art industry.
有些人可能认为，在从事艺术法之前，必须具有专业的艺术背景。我不这么认为。艺术不是高深复杂的科学。更重要的是你应该对艺术行业有浓厚的兴趣。
The last thing is that you need to appreciate the uniqueness of people from different backgrounds. For example, most artists are eccentric and are quite different from clients in commercial settings. You need to not only understand the artists, but also appreciate them.
最后，你需要欣赏来自不同背景的人的独特性。例如，大多数艺术家都很特立独行，与商业环境中的客户完全不同。你不仅要了解艺术家，还要欣赏他们。
If you want to know more about Mr Laurens Kasteleijn and the services he provides, please visit www.artlawservices.com, add his Instagram, or reach out to him via LinkedIn.
如果您想更深入了解 Laurens Kasteleijn 先生及其提供的服务，请访问 www.artlawservices.com，添加他的 Instagram，或通过 LinkedIn 与他联系。