Judge orders property owner to pay 21 graffiti artists $6.7 million for covering up their murals

www theblaze com 1 min read

What’s going on?

A property owner who painted over dozens of murals on a building he owned in Long Island City has now been told to pay $6.7 million to the graffiti artists by a Brooklyn judge.

Catch me up:

Lawyers for the 21 graffiti artists in the unusual case argued that the murals were protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a law used to shield public art of “recognized stature” even when it’s created on someone’s else property, the New York Times reported.

Wait … so the vandals won? How does that work?

A civil jury found that Jerry Wolkoff, owner of the 5Pointz complex, broke the law by painting over the murals in 2013. Judge Frederick Block ruled that 45 of the dozens of whitewashed-over murals had enough artistic merit to be protected under VARA and awarded the artists the maximum in damages.

Jeffy shared this story on today’s show, and Doc was not happy to hear about a property owner’s rights being violated.

“I hate this, absolutely, it’s his building. He can do what he wants,” Doc said. “This is asinine.”

To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6 a.m. – 9 a.m. ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.

A property owner who painted over dozens of murals on a building he owned in Long Island City has now been told to pay $6.7 million to the graffiti artists by a Brooklyn judge.

Catch me up:

Lawyers for the 21 graffiti artists in the unusual case argued that the murals were protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a law used to shield public art of “recognized stature” even when it’s created on someone’s else property, the New York Times reported.

Wait … so the vandals won? How does that work?

A civil jury found that Jerry Wolkoff, owner of the 5Pointz complex, broke the law by painting over the murals in 2013. Judge Frederick Block ruled that 45 of the dozens of whitewashed-over murals had enough artistic merit to be protected under VARA and awarded the artists the maximum in damages.

Jeffy shared this story on today’s show, and Doc was not happy to hear about a property owner’s rights being violated.

“I hate this, absolutely, it’s his building. He can do what he wants,” Doc said. “This is asinine.”

The real problem here is that the Federal VARA law does not define "recognized stature" and, so far, no case law has either really.

This situation is insane. Basically, if those graffiti artists now have "recognized stature", they could literally go paint on ANYTHING and it couldn't be legally destroyed.

The law was intended to protect artists that create works to protect them down the road later after they have sold the work, for example. It was not intended to protect works created basically illegally in the first place.

This is one of those situations where the landlord should show how crazy this is by paying some artist with "recognized stature" to spray-paint graffiti on the judge's car or house. He might be fined for the damage -- but, technically, the judge shouldn't be able to remove it! ;)

- John...

What Ally said. We have no graffiti in our town. We stay really on top of it and get it covered almost immediately when it shows up.

Our city has an app where you can take a photo of the graffiti or other violation and send it with the GPS address to code enforcement and they will get it abated within 24-48 hours.

The other side of the story:

news.artnet.com/art-world/judge-awards-6-million-5pointz-lawsuit-1222394

Read the entire story he leased the building to various artists for years.

Also remember NYC is its own little world. The sites worth $200m so this is a rounding error and will be appealed down.

Tony,

And this is why I do not rent to lawyers or their staff. Lawyers can twist up any truth, and they help their workers.

Thanks for posting details on the other side of this. I searched the other day figuring there must be more to it, but couldn't find anything. Good to read it now -- thanks!

- John...