Posted on 11/09/2017 7:10:18 PM PST by BenLurkin
A jury has ruled that a real estate developer broke the law by destroying a swath of graffiti art in New York City, in a verdict that could provide legal protections for street artists across the US.
The federal jury made its decision after a group of artists sued Jerry Wolkoff, who painted over their work at the 5Pointz building in Queens, New York City, in November 2013.
5Pointz, a former factory owned by Wolkoff, was a haven for graffiti artists from around the world and became a prominent tourist attraction. Wolkoff had given the artists permission to use the building as a canvas for “aerosol art” and the building was covered in multicolored murals and tags.
But in 2013, when Wolkoff decided to demolish the building and replace it with apartments, he whitewashed the graffiti art in the dead of night.
On Wednesday the jury decided that the artists’ work was legally protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act (Vara), and that meant that Wolkoff had broken the law.
It was the first time graffiti, or “aerosol art” had been given that protection under federal law, potentially meaning thousands of graffiti murals across the country could now be preserved.
Wolkoff bought the 5Pointz building, which once housed a factory that manufactured water meters, in the 1970s. He gave artists permission to create murals on the building but said he had told them he always intended to demolish it.
In 2013 he finally put those plans into action and drew up plans to raze the building and create an apartment complex. But the way he carried out those plans caused uproar.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Sounds like a perverted form of adverse possession.
Plank #1 of the Communist Manifesto: Abolition of private property rights.
Was any stolen paint used?
The landowner owned the canvass. Severe loss of property rights here.
Street artists? No, they are disgusting vandals.
By allowing them to paint for so long did he create an easement?
No good deed goes unpunished.
The railroad cars behind our office are covered with this crap.
Turk 182 lives!
Apparently not. It was Taki 183.
And the fact that he has faded into the haze of memory error is appropriate. Graffiti can logically have no rights, since it by definition the wall-scrawler is denying the rights of the owner of the thing he scrawled on.
Whenever I see a truck covered in graffiti in Maryland, I check the name on the door. It’s always from New York City.
So when the KKK or whoever paints swastikas on churches or synagogues, is that now street art, too?
How about if the street artists paint the judge’s house?
Have these judges all gone collectively insane?
Sounds like it.
His informal allowance came back to bite him.
Should have used his lawyer and strictly enforced usage.
Graffiti or tattoos on a beautiful woman. I don’t know which bothers me worse.
Before tattoos on beautiful women,
it was the filthy mouths the acquired
in the seventies.
I have heard many times of people that took in homeless people for a short while and were stunned to find they couldn’t just “ask them to leave”. Once you give people permission to stay for a while, all kinds of protections suddenly come into play.
It’s amazing the morass of rules we have created that has brought into play all these unintended consequences.
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