Pratiksha Shome
This week, a Miami federal judge found in favour of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. For a short period of time in 2019, Comedian, a banana glued to a wall, was the topic of the art world after it sold at Art Basel Miami Beach for $120,000.
Joe Morford, an artist who claims to have invented the technique of duct taping fruit to walls in 2000, has filed a lawsuit against Cattelan, alleging that Cattelan based the artwork on his Orange and Banana, in which plastic replicas of these fruits were attached to wall panels with duct tape.
According to US District Judge Robert Scola’s ruling, there was insufficient proof that Cattelan had really seen Morford’s fruit combination. Judge Scola has ruled that the idea of “affixing a banana to a vertical plane using duct tape,” which is shared by the works, is not covered by copyright law.
The main distinctions between the pieces, according to Judge Scola, are “the angle at which [the banana was] placed” and “the exacting standards that Cattelan developed for Comedian’s display.”
Scola defended his choice, saying that to rule otherwise would further restrict the already limited number of ways that a banana might be legally posted to a wall without violating Morford’s creative output.
A few weeks before Scola’s ruling, the Supreme Court had found that Andy Warhol’s Prince Series violated the copyright owned by photographer Lynn Goldsmith, whose photograph served as the basis for the Warhol’s Prince screenprint.
The “fair use” doctrine, which many artists who have taken images in their work have frequently depended upon, is cast in doubt by the Supreme Court’s decision.
Source: ARTnews
