Art Client Russell Katz Featured in the Washington Post

Installation shot of Terzo Piano’s exhibition “RK1” which features work by Russell Katz. (Photo: Wyatt Reid Westlund/Terzo Piano)

The firm is thrilled to announce the resounding success of the first art installation of its longtime client and friend, Russell Katz. In a project largely driven by Of Counsel Musetta Durkee—a lawyer with a Master’s degree in Performance Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts—Clinton & Peed helped Katz negotiate and draft the series of agreements necessary to make the installation a business success.

For many years, the firm has represented Katz—an award-winning architect by training and sustainable real estate developer and manager by profession (see MOMI DC)—in connection with various other business matters. This is the first time we had the opportunity to represent him in connection with his prodigious artistic talent, however.

According to the Washington Post’s recent profile:

Half of the paintings in D.C. artist Russell Katz’s debut solo show, “RK1,” depict trees. . . . They’re stark renderings of bare trunks and limbs in winter, daubed in yellowish grays that are faithful to their source: the photographs of pioneering French artist Eugène Atget, made mostly in the first quarter of the 20th century. Oddly, the tree studies fit well with the other series of Katz oils on display, which re-create photos of World War I battlefield explosions.

Formally, the two series have more in common than their monochromatic palettes. Both trees and explosions reach for the sky, and in these pictures are viewed straight on, without tricky framing. The crucial difference is the implied action of the explosion paintings. They’re just as static as the tree ones, yet strongly imply action. More than a century later and translated from photo to painting, the blasts look as immediate as the trees appear ageless. . . .

Each [of Katz’s large, detailed canvases] stands alone like a monument to lost time.

The contract and business attorneys at Clinton & Peed frequently advise clients on a wide range of business and transactional matters, from single-contract matters to complex multi-party transactions. In addition to aiding the firm in connection with its general business deals, Musetta has developed a specialized expertise in connection with art and art-related projects. She is a longtime pro bono lawyer at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and has written extensively on various subjects relating to art law. See, e.g., International Perspectives on Street Art, Center for Art Law (Mar. 21, 2019); Tricking the Art Market—On Forger, Beltracchi, and Scientific Technology, Center for Art Law (Dec. 18, 2018); Museum Due Diligence and Repatriation Efforts: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Returns Cultural Objects to Nigeria, 49 ABA/SIL YIR 333 (2015).

Russell Katz’s installation RK1 runs through October 31 at Terzo Piano, 1515 14th St. NW. Open by appointment only.