United States - California

Abstract

2021 witnessed US retaining its leading position in the global art market and increasing its sales to over $28.0 billion. Behind such significant growth lies a comprehensive legal framework across most sectors in the art industry, including acquiring, selling, collecting, exhibiting, lending, repatriating, exporting and importing. The US law imposes regulations on art sales to increase the transparency of the art transactions and provide adequate remedies for aggrieved art sellers and buyers. The federal government has also established various acts to protect the domestic cultural patrimony and works with different countries to protect against illicit importation of cultural property. This chapter intends to provide a high-level understanding of the vibrant and engaging issues in the art industry, including the topic of non-fungible tokens, which blurs the line between physical art world and the virtual one, but does not bewilder the regulators.