The Federal Court in Miami, Florida ruled in favor of Maurizio Cattelan, acknowledging the Paduan artist the copyright on his work “Comedian”, the controversial banana attached to the wall with duct tape, sold in 2019 at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair for $120,000.
Joe MorfordUS artist who claims to have pioneered the act of sticking fruit to walls with duct tape in 2000, had filed a civil suit against Cattelan, claiming that the latter was inspired by his work “Orange and Banana” for “Comedian”in which plastic versions of these fruits were taped to panels on a wall.
District Judge Robert Scola’s decision said there was insufficient evidence that Cattelan had seen Morford’s fruit arrangement. In any case, according to Judge Scola, the concept shared by the works, “the affixing of a banana to a vertical plane using adhesive tape”, is not protected by copyright law.
Judge Scola noted the significant differences between the works, especially “the angle in which the banana was placed” and “the exacting standards that Cattelan developed for the exposition of ‘Comedian'”. “If it were decided otherwise, it would further limit the already limited number of ways a banana can be legally tacked to a wall without infringing on Morford’s work,” Scola said of his decision.
Scola’s decision comes weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled that Art Andy Warhol’s ‘Prince’ series infringed the copyright held by photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who had taken the image it featured on. based the master of Pop Art screenprint “Prince”.
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