Justice proves Maurizio Cattelan against Daniel Druet

The French sculptor failed to assert the authorship of eight wax pieces that the Italian artist-star had ordered between 1999 and 2006.

The judgment under deliberation in the case of violation of copyright opposing the artists Daniel Druet and Maurizio Cattelan was rendered on Friday July 8 in the afternoon.

The judges making up the 3 e

é> chamber-4 e section of the Paris court had to decide an unprecedented dispute in the field of contemporary art: which was the ‘Author of eight works imagined by a conceptual artist, but shaped in wax, in terms of characters, by a sculptor. The magistrates judged the inadmissibility of the action brought by Daniel Druet. The French sculptor claimed the exclusive paternity of these sculptures made at the request of Maurizio Cattelan and his Parisian gallery between 1999 and 2006, without taking into account the artistic approach of Maurizio Cattelan as a whole nor its multiple artistic interventions in various contexts which have renowned, beyond these eight pieces.

The hearing of this trial was held on May 13 in Paris, arousing many debates and stands on the essence of conceptual art. The magistrates ruled this Friday that “it is […] not disputed that the precise directives of staging the effigies of wax in a specific configuration, holding in particular to their positioning within the exhibition spaces aimed at playing On public emotions (surprise, empathy, amusement, repulsion, etc.), only emanated from [Maurizio Cattelan] alone, Daniel Druet being in no way able – nor moreover not trying to do so – ‘Arroger the slightest participation in the choices relating to the scenic device for putting the said effigies (choice of building and the dimension of the rooms welcoming such a character, direction of the gaze, lighting, even destruction of a glass roof or a parquet floor for Make the staging more realistic and more striking) or to the content of the possible message to convey through this staging. “

“This deliberation makes a case law in the definition of conceptual art in French law. It is a historic day”, reacted to the world Pierre-Olivier sur, the defender of the gallery Emmanuel Perrotin. It should be noted that Daniel Druet did not directly attack Maurizio Cattelan, but his Parisian gallery, the publishing house of the latter, as well as the currency of Paris, where the artist made an exhibition in September 2016, “not Afraid of Love “. In April 2018, Daniel Druet had assigned the Perrotin gallery and the Turenne Editions company before the Paris court for copyright and counterfeiting. In the process, on May 3, he also assigned the currency of Paris for having exhibited four of his works during the exhibition. On May 22, the currency of Paris sent a registered letter to Maurizio Cattelan and the Cattelan archives to request their intervention in the procedure opened by Daniel Druet, invoking the partnership contract concluded within the framework of the exhibition, which provided for a clause of Guarantee.

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