Louis Vuitton sues artist Nadia Plesner -- again -- for using handbag image in Darfur art

Darfurnica (detail), Nadia Plesner, 2010

Danish artist Nadia Plesner got in hot water with Louis Vuitton in 2008 for depicting an African child with one of its high-end bags on one arm and a chihuahua in the other (below) as part of her campaign urging divestment from Sudan over the conflict in Darfur. Now the company is suing her again: this time, the luxury goods company has filed a copyright infringement suit at The Hague that will penalize her 5,000 Euros for each day a likeness of its Audra bag in her painting Darfurnica remains on her website. The company has been tallying her penalty since Jan. 28.

"The story about Darfur must be told, and I believe I should have my artistic freedom of speech to do so," Plesner writes on her website.

Whereas the first legal kerfuffle with Vuitton ended in mid-2008 with Plesner agreeing to stop selling t-shirts bearing the handbag image, this time Plesner's art is not merchandise to be sold but a work of fine art. Created to the same dimensions as painter Pablo Picasso's Guernica, a 1937 polemic against the carpet-bombing of the Basque town of the same name, the idea for Plesner's piece hinged on news that officials decided to shroud Picasso's famed painting in blue cloth during a 2003 UN press conference on the Iraq War by John Negroponte and Colin Powell.

"It is amazing that an art work can be considered so powerful, that it has to be covered up while governments present their plans," Plesner writes. "It only proves that artists around the world must continue to work with the harsh issues to influence the people with power and to start important debates."

That same year -- 2003 -- the genocide in Darfur started, she writes. "Politicians come up with new ways to try to hide from us that things stay the same."

Despite a clearly artistic -- and not commercial -- intention behind the work, Louis Vuitton is seeking monetary penalties (220,000 Euros or roughly $307,000 and counting, with no ceiling on the penalty) and aims to prevent Plesner from exhibiting the painting either on her website or at venues in the European Union. (Here's an unofficial English translation of the court order.)

Plesner, who now runs a foundation that raises funds for projects like sending medical equipment to Darfur or buying a vehicle for use at an orphanage in Tanzania, is lawyering up for her defense. Her opponents won't need a fundraiser for its legal efforts: Louis Vuitton -- aka LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton -- had profits of $28.26 billion last year, and its chairman, Bernard Arnault, rose on Forbes' billionaires list to world's fourth-richest man, with a net worth of $41 billion.

But Plesner reportedly has an unorthodox ally. According to media reports and an image posted at Reddit (.png file), the hacktivist group Anonymous is launching a campaign against the company. The goal is to use "any non-physically violent method available to us to cause financial damage to Louis Vuitton."

Big words? Perhaps, but Anonymous has reportedly been successful in launching distributed denial of service attacks against various entities, bringing down the websites of BMI (for its "war on copyright"), Americans for Prosperity (the anti-union group funded by the Koch Brothers that's been active in Wisconsin in recent weeks) and VISA and Mastercard (for the company shutting out Wikileaks), among others.

Update: Louis Vuitton lawsuit against Nadia Plesner inspires Dutch street artist; first hearing set for Mar. 30

Update: On May 4, 2011, the court in The Hague ruled against Louis Vuitton, finding that "the importance of [Plesner's work] outweighs the importance of Vuitton (protection of property)." An elated Plesner tells Eyeteeth, "Today is a great day for art."

Louis Vuitton lawsuit against Nadia Plesner inspires Dutch street artist; first hearing set for Mar. 30

A copyright infringement lawsuit by luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton against Danish artist Nadia Plesner has taken to the streets in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Plesner was sued by the company in 2008 for selling t-shirts to benefit Darfur that bore the image of a Sudanese child holding a chihuahua and one of Vuitton's iconic bags. Earlier this year the company sued her again for using the image in a giant painting, scaled to match Picasso's Guernica and called Darfurnica. Vuitton's suit filed in The Hague lists penalties of 5,000 Euros per day for each day the image remains on her site.

Now street artist Little Louis writes in that the "starved little boy carrying a Chihuahua and a fashion bag has grown to a height of seven meters on the facade" of a building at the cultural free zone The Landbouwbelang. The image differs from Plesner's original in one key way: the Vuitton bag is left blank, so artists can use it as a canvas for their own messages.

While there are some news reports that Vuitton is willing to settle the case, Plesner calls such stories an attempt by the company "to disinform the media by stating that it is all a big misunderstanding and they never had any problem with my painting Darfurnica and are willing to drop the case." She continues:

First of all, and let me be very clear on this point: we explicitly asked Louis Vuitton to lift the ex parte court order. They have refused and continue to refuse to lift the order. If that position changes that would of course be great but so far it has not.

Second, Louis Vuitton specifically asked and got a prohibition on me exhibiting (offline and online) or selling any image of the little boy with the bag, as incorporated in my works Simple Living and the painting Darfurnica. There can thus be no "misunderstanding". The fact that they suddenly act as if there is no problem at all and are willing to "leave it at this" seems to be an attempt to pacify the media, while at the same time they continue the battle against me outside the eyes of the media. "Leaving it at this" means that the court order and the penalties remain.

On Mar. 17, Plesner filed her own counter-suit against Vuitton (read it here) aimed at getting the court's order against her lifted. She argues that the order is an "unacceptable infringement on [her] right to freedom of speech" and a "gross violation of the right to a fair trial," both of which should be afforded her by the European Convention on Human Rights.

The first hearing on the case is Mar. 30.

Vuitton bullies artist over Darfur image

Taylor reports that designer Nadia Plesner is getting sued by Louis Vuitton for showing the likeness of a Vuitton bag in a campaign to encourage divestment from Darfur. As a Vuitton lawyer claims in a February cease-and-desist letter, the bag pictured is the Monogram Multicolore, created by Vuitton art director Marc Jacobs and artist Takashi Murakami. "As an artist yourself, we hope that you recognize the need to respect other artists' rights and Louis Vuitton's Intellectual Property rights," the attorney wrote. Plesner, probably aware that artist's like Murakami have the right to appropriate and satirize the work of others, lawyered up and refused. Now, according to TechDirt, Vuitton is "demanding $7,500 for each day she keeps selling the product, $7,500 for each day she displays its original cease-and-desist letter and (my favorite) $7,500 for each day she mentions the name 'Louis Vuitton' on her website."

"Sometimes recognizable objects are needed to express deeper meanings, and in their new form become more than the objects themselves -- they become art," Plesner wrote in her response to Vuitton's initial letter. Indeed, as Sudanese troops and affiliated militias mow down civilians in Darfur -- as many as 300,000 have died there, according to a new estimate -- the culture of consumption in the west, represented aptly by this particular bag (which retails for $1,580 on the company's website), stands in stark contrast.

Plesner, hopefully boosted in her efforts by the suit, says she'll continue with her "Simple Living" series, which both raises awareness of the genocide in Darfur and generates funds -- 30 percent of sales -- to its victims.

Update: Vuitton has collaborated with artist Richard Prince, whose celebrated work includes Marlboro ads he re-photographs, without crediting the original photographer.

Update 03.13.11: Louis Vuitton sues artist Nadia Plesner -- again -- for using handbag image in Darfur art

Update 05.04.11: EU court rules against Louis Vuitton in Nadia Plesner copyright case

EU court rules against Louis Vuitton in Nadia Plesner copyright case

Artist Nadia Plesner has prevailed in a copyright infringement lawsuit leveled by luxury handbag manufacturer Louis Vuitton for her use of the company's iconic bag in her painting Darfurnica (detail at right). A court in The Hague handed down its ruling this morning, finding that "the importance of Plesner (freedom of expression through her work) outweighs the importance of Vuitton (protection of property)" (according to a Google translation of a Dutch news story).

Vuitton was seeking a penalty of 5,000 Euros per day for each day her large-scale painting -- inspired by Picasso's Guernica, but created to raise awareness of the plight of people in Darfur, Sudan, and western indifference to it -- remained on her website. The company began its tally on Jan. 28. It also sought to prevent her from exhibiting the work online or in the European Union.

Plesner made headlines in 2008 when Vuitton sued her for using the image of a Darfurian boy with an Audra handbag in t-shirts. Plesner has since started a foundation to raise funds to help people in Darfur, Tanzania, Uganda and elsewhere, and the attention of this most recent suit -- which has garnered headlines in newspapers and blogs worldwide (not to mention the eye of street artists) -- will surely help boost the profile of those efforts.

According to a Danish news report, Louis Vuitton -- which posted profits of $28.26 billion last year -- has been ordered by The Hague to pay Plesner's legal costs.

Plesner, who gave her defense at The Hague on April 21, wrote on her website when the suit was filed, "The story about Darfur must be told, and I believe I should have my artistic freedom of speech to do so." The Hague, sensibly, concurred.

Update: Nadia Plesner on Louis Vuitton case: "This is a great day for art."

(Thanks to the commenter who tipped me off about the decision.)

Sued by Louis Vuitton, Nadia Plesner gets her day in court

Darfurnica (detail), Nadia Plesner, 2010

Danish artist Nadia Plesner, the subject of two lawsuits in recent years by luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton had her say in court in The Hague yesterday. Louis Vuitton -- which had profits of $28.26 billion last year -- is suing her for copyright infringement for rendering one of its handbags in her painting Darfurnica, which seeks to raise awareness of the ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan. The company seeks to penalize her 5,000 Euros for each day the artistic work is pictured on her website and aims to prevent Plesner from exhibiting the painting either on her website or at venues in the European Union.

Yesterday, Plesner finally got to present her defense -- before a full-sized reproduction of the painting. On Facebook she shares how it went:

They stated that they have no problem with Darfurnica, never had, and that they only object to me using "their product" in my Simple Living "logo" [pictured here]. We highly objected to it all, since Simple Living is an art work, just as Darfurnica and because LV has aggressively been going after the painting from day one.

We also presented the threats regarding the painting that LV's attorney made to me by phone, which he of course denied completely.

I thought the most important part was when the judge asked LV's attorney why Darfurnica was mentioned in the lawsuit - and forbidden by the court order - if they didn't have a problem with it? To which their attorney responded "You shouldn't read it like that."

Then the judge asked how else he could read it, since the painting is the first thing mentioned in the list of works they want to forbid, but their attorney insisted that the court order should be read as if the paragraph regarding Darfurnica was not there. He aggressively went on and on for an hour about how I abused them, for example by using their Audra bag as an eyecatcher on the invitation for my exhibition. Yes, I used my own Simple Living drawing (not their Audra Bag) on the invitation to my art exhibition about Darfur. What a crazy thing to do.

We had a 1:1 print of Darfurnica in the court room and I presented it to the judge and explained why I painted it and what the different symbols represented. I have had the chance to present Darfurnica to a lot of different people by now both in my studio, in the Odd Fellow Palace and at the HEART museum, but it felt so surreal to do it in a court room, especially in front of various LV representatives.

I explained the urgency for raising awareness about the situation in Darfur, and how I had painted various Hollywood gossip stories that got an insane amount of media attention.

The judge listened, and I believe he understood the meaning of the painting.

There were about 65 people present during the hearing, many artists and fellow students came to support me, and they had made these great little supportive badges with different texts like: "Louis, art is cool", etc. It made a great difference to me that I was not there alone, and I am grateful to the people who showed up.

There were also different reporters present, and even though LV's attorney consistently claimed that I had manipulated the media to be on my side, the articles today are not different from the previous ones, even after the reporters had heard both sides of the story and were presented with the evidence from both sides.

The final result was that we asked the judge to have the court order from January 27th annulled, and LV objected to this. The judge said he would try to give his ruling before May 4, 2011.

3 from '11: Ai Weiwei, Nadia Plesner, John Yang

With 2011 gone, I'll spare you the self-serving top-10 list. But in the spirit of self-reflection, I have been looking back at the year at Eyeteeth. What I noticed: the most-read stories weren't really the best ones. And the best ones weren't really... ones.

So, if you'll indulge me in a quick wrap-up of 2011, here's the three topics I feel best about from the past 12 months.

Ai Weiwei: You'll recall that the Chinese artist's detention and captivity for 81 days in early spring took up a lot of space here. The vigils, open letters, and street-art his detention sparked. The responses from art-world figures to it (my favorite: Dia director Philippe Vergne's ballsy reaction, which he later expanded on for ArtInfo.com). The Change.org petition that was targeted by Chinese hackers (a fact I was the first to confirm). The way Ai's arrest and imprisonment without charge drew attention to other artists and dissidents who've been detained or disappeared in China. Anyone who's read this blog for awhile should be able to see why it captured me so: Free expression and the ability of artists to bear witness to social problems and imagine different worlds are recurring themes here.

Nadia Plesner: Ultra-profitable and ultra-sensitive, Louis Vuitton tried to silence Danish artist Plesner this year, for artistic appropriation that was clearly fair use. Her gigantic painting Darfurnica included a likeness of an LV Audra bag slung on the arm of a Darfuri boy--Plesner's rather overt way of chastising the developed world for being focused on celebrity and consumerism at the expense of people dying in the region of Sudan. Although Plesner's motive wasn't profit, Vuitton wanted to collect 5,000 euros for each day the image remained on her website. At the Hague, however, the company's copyright infringment case was tossed out, the court  finding that "the importance of Plesner (freedom of expression through her work) outweighs the importance of Vuitton (protection of property)." "Today is a great day for art," Plesner told Eyeteeth following the ruling. "Now we have won back our freedom to make reference to the modern society we live in."

John Yang: Biking around Minneapolis in July, I spotted a graffiti stencil that looked familiar. I'd seen the image of a sleepwalking boy two places: spraypainted on the wall of an art squat in Berlin in 2005 and on the sleeve of a Sigur Ros album. Digging into the image, I unearthed a curious story. The stencil is based on a photo by the late John Yang, who shot it in France during a tour of duty that included time playing with the 7th Army Symphony, as I discovered after contacting Yang's archives and connecting with his daughter, Naomi, a designer and founding member of the band Galaxie 500. She told me that the band Sigur Ros used a stencil version of the image, Blindman's Bluff, on its album ( ) -- but her dad never got officially credited or compensated. I love this story not because I want to stick it to Sigur Ros -- although it seems like they could stand some of that -- but because it suggests there are similarly deep stories around many of the images we find around us every day. I'm glad I spotted this rabbit hole on the side of a boxcar passing through Minneapolis and dove right in.

Happy 2012, all.

Bits: 03.30.11

Raphaël Dallaporta, B-40, from the series "Antipersonnel"

• In "Antipersonnel," Raphaël Dallaporta photographs antipersonnel landmines "in the way an advertising photographer might render a shampoo bottle," including the B-40 blast mine above, which is presented with this caption: "The B-40 antipersonnel mine is a Vietnamese adaptation of the BLU-24/B US-made cluster bomb. When activated, the homemade mine contains enough explosive and fragmenting pieces to blow off a leg. Despite the destruction of 4 million mines and 8 million items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) since 1975, it is estimated that 16.478 million square meters of land in Vietname is still contaminated by mines and UXO."

• Wired's Raw File blog looks at an "oddly peaceful" yet weaponry-laden scene in the Middle East, the International Defence Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi, as photographed by Spencer Murphy in 2007. “Countries from all around the globe are present and offer everything from pepper spray to tanks and aircraft,” Murphy says. “I do not want to make an intentional moral statement but merely present to the viewer a world that most of us don’t get to see.”

• Mother Jones hosts a selection of work from the exhibition Artists Against the War, presented in January 2008 at the Society of Illustrators gallery in New York.

• As the Louis Vuitton/Nadia Plesner copyright infringment lawsuit gets its first hearing in The Hague today, here's a far less incendiary use of the luxury brand's logo: needlepointed bananas by Kazuki Guzmán. [Update: Plesner's hearing has been rescheduled for Apr. 20.]

• Speaking of Plesner, the art-and-law blog Art and Artifice notes two "fascinating aspects" of Vuitton's ex parte application: "Firstly, LV suggests that Plesner may have a defence under freedom of expression but immediately dismisses this argument on the basis that it 'holds no water' and that 'there is no necessity to use the intellectual property rights of Louis Vuitton [as] There are numerous other means to get this message across.' Secondly, the reliance on design right as opposed to copyright, particularly as there is no fair dealing defence to design right infringement." I've emailed Plesner in hopes of hearing the outcome of today's hearing.

• Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami is now selling "New Day" t-shirts, and he'll donate 100% of proceeds to the victims of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan on Mar. 11.

• New York exhibition: Keep Out You Thieving Bastards -- featuring Minnesota artists Aaron Spangler, Alec Soth, Angela Strassheim, Cameron Gainer, Chris Larson, David Rathman, Justin Newhall, Paul Shambroom, Rob Fischer, Ross Knight, Santiago Cucullu, Sara Woster, Shannon Kennedy, Tetsuya Yamada, and Chris Osgood and Chuck Statler -- on view through May 8 at Hendershot Gallery.

• A bike-mounted robotic graffiti rainbow sprayer by Akay.

• Photographer Brian Ulrich gives a nod at a potential future project on Facebook when he asks friends for old store charge cards like this one. One reader notes that an array of such cards are offered for sale, in all their weird-vintage-design glory, on Ebay.

• 3eanuts: "Charles Schulz's Peanuts comics often conceal the existential despair of their world with a closing joke at the characters' expense. With the last panel omitted, despair pervades all."

Nadia Plesner on Louis Vuitton case: "This is a great day for art"

Danish artist Nadia Plesner sends an email with her reaction to today's ruling by a judge in The Hague throwing out Louis Vuitton's copyright infringment lawsuit against her. "I am absolutely overwhelmed with joy, and I cried when I heard the great news," she writes.

She continues:

I hoped for the best, but never expected the result to be this positive! The judge completely anulled the court order from January 27th, so now I don't have to pay the fine of 485.000 Euros anymore. I am also free to show Darfurnica and Simple Living [the image that was the subject of Vuitton's 2008 lawsuit against her].

It has been a hard and intensive time, and I am pleased that it is over. The good thing about the legal case is, that Darfurnica got much more attention, and therefore the situation in Darfur got more attention. I hope that my painting has inspired some some debate about media and priorities.

I am also very grateful from all the support I have been receiving from all over the world, especially from Darfurian people who reached out to me.

Today is a great day for art. If I had lost this, I believe it would have caused many artists to censor their own work to avoid legal trouble. Now we have won back our freedom to make reference to the modern society we live in.

Nadia Plesner/Louis Vuitton copyright hearing moved to Apr. 20

Nadia Plesner, the Danish artist being sued for copyright infringement by Louis Vuitton for using a rendering of a handbag in her Darfur painting, writes in to say the first hearing on the case, originally scheduled for today in The Hague, was moved yesterday to the afternoon of April 20. She writes:

The reason is that last week we challenged the assigned judge since it was the same judge who gave the court order in the first place. We feel like he can not be impartial, since ruling in my favor would mean that he would have to admit making several severe mistakes.

So last Monday we had a court hearing about this and the three judges listened to us! They think there might be reason to assign a different judge and they scheduled a new hearing for this coming Monday. Then it will be decided who will judge my case on April 20.

It feels like a small victory that they even consider it.

After Plesner, Vuitton sues Warner Bros.

Luxury bagmaker Louis Vuitton is at it again. After unsuccessfully suing Danish artist Nadia Plesner for copyright infringement for depicting an Audra bag in her large-scale painting Darfurnica, the  company is suing Warner Brothers for trademark infringement for a joke in the movie The Hangover II about a knock-off Vuitton bag. The Wall Street Journal describes the scene:

...the drug-addled doofus played by Zach Galifianakis fancies himself fancy because he is carrying what appears to be one of the company's bags. "Careful," he cautions in the movie, "that is a Louis Vuitton." The line is said to have become something of a pop-culture catchphrase, which has Louis Vuitton bent out of shape—specially since, according to its court filing claiming trademark infringement, the bag in question is a fake. The company wants the knock-off and the catchphrase excised from all copies of the film, and some compensation culled from the movie's profits for good measure.

TMZ has a clip of the offending 6-second scene.

Vuitton, which posted profits of $28.26 billion in 2010, doesn't have much of a chance in court, WSJ's Eric Felten writes, citing a dismissed suit by Wham-O over a scene in the film Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star that showed a dangerously misused Slip'n'Slide. He continues:

If "Careful, that is a Louis Vuitton" has really become a catchphrase, the filmmakers ought to trademark it. Then they can sue Louis Vuitton for using that trademark in its litigation against the "Hangover" crowd.

The film has every right, as I see it, to satirize the company's products, even if the gag is used in a movie with an aim of making a profit. That wasn't the case with Plesner: Her painting, a riff on Picasso's Guernica, was created for (nonprofit) artistic and activist reasons. The cause: Raising awareness of the plight of people, especially children, dying in Darfur -- and the apparent indifference of many, including ultra-wealth celebrities, to their suffering. Louis Vuitton sought to collect 5,000 euros for each day the painting stayed on Plesner's website.

Pussy Riot Protest

No one was surprised that a Russian court found three members of Pussy Riot guilty of "hooliganism" for staging an anti-Putin punk prayer service in a Moscow church. But Friday's sentence of two years in prison has sparked protests around the world and responses from artists--from graffiti in Moscow to a Mentalgassi wheatpaste on a Berlin trash bin to a Facebook image by Nadia Plesner that puts the band members' iconic balaclava on the central figure in Plesner's painting Darfurnica. And, last night in New York, before the verdict came out, The Illuminator projected a Free Pussy Riot message on the Russian Embassy's wall.  e-flux, a group that reset its Facebook timeline image to one of the Voina-affiliated punk band today, carries one of the better protests--a verbal one by Garry Kasparov:

What is most frustrating about the considerable western reaction to this horrible farce is when the media talks about Putin and the Kremlin "losing a PR battle" with a punk rock band. What does Putin care about PR in the west? As long as the oil and gas keep flowing and the money keeps going from the treasury into the crooks' pockets, they don't care about anything else! As I've said many times, Putin and his criminal regime are a Russian problem for Russians to solve, but western hypocrisy about human rights gets tiresome when they could take serious measures instead of just talking.

I am glad artists like Paul McCartney and Madonna are speaking out, but until Interpol and EU parliaments and American legislators take action to penalize Putin's cronies for criminal, financial, and human rights violations, all the press chatter in the world makes little difference. Tell the young children of Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina that their mothers "are winning a PR battle" while they sit in prison for three years for political protest!"