Читать книгу Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Cleveland’s Free Stamp - Edward J. Olszewski - Страница 15

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THE LEGAL ISSUE

Standard Oil contract No. 44–0641–5034 stipulated that the sculpture was to be original (p. 3, article 10.1); that it could not be copied by the artist except in 2-D or small-scale 3-D (10.2); that it could not be copied or duplicated by OWNER (Standard Oil) (10.3); that OWNER could make photographs, films, etc., but could not use the work for promotional purposes (10.4); that the artist owned all studies, preliminary drawings, etc., except the original maquette (10.5); and that the artist reserved the right to copyright the work. Article 11.4 stipulated that “[i]n case of dispute, CONTRACTOR (the sculptors) shall continue to prosecute the work pending determination thereof, unless requested by OWNER to suspend the work,” which would seem to grant Standard Oil control of the installation, although this was probably intended to deal with construction problems. Article 15 provided a termination right to Standard Oil only if the City did not grant approval of the project (which had been given on September 15, 1985). Oldenburg’s letter of March 19, 1986, stated, “The Free Stamp is not only ‘site specific’ but an integral part of the plaza and architecture of the new Standard Oil Building developed in consultation with the architects Gyo Obata and James McDonald. . . . Therefore, the Free Stamp cannot be resited, only eliminated.”

Anna Choko of the law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey argued in an in-house memo of March 29, 1986, as a preliminary finding, that the sculptors had to show that they suffered damages from the rejection of their sculpture, or that there was no adequate remedy.¹ Because Oldenburg and van Bruggen had completed their function, Standard Oil had no further obligation. The sculpture’s installation would create an “undue hardship” on the employer (Standard Oil) in erecting something it no longer wanted, and the contract had set no limits on the removal of the work. She advised that the statement of rejection had to be tactful and strategic so that the sculptors could not claim that rejection harmed their reputation, ergo the persistent declaration that “the sculpture was inappropriate.”² In another memo, of May 8, 1986, Choko posed questions of rights an artist has to his work when its ownership is vested in another, and whether changing the site of a sculpture altered, distorted, and misrepresented the artist’s work to the public.³ She opined,

It is highly unlikely that a court will hold that a sculpture, even though distinguishable from most other forms of art in that it bears a greater relationship to the site at which it is located will be altered or mutilated by placement at an alternative site. . . . It is difficult to imagine and highly unlikely that a court would arrive at the conclusion . . . that an artist has a right not to have his work mutilated, distorted or altered, could be extrapolated so far as to characterize the moving of the site of the sculpture as mutilating that sculpture so that it substantially departs from the original. Oldenburg, the artist would have to argue that his work encompasses not only his sculpture but both the Free Stamp and the site in front of the Standard Oil building to make the argument that moving the site is distorting and thereby misrepresenting his art work, the sculpture.

Choko cautioned, however, that “[w]hile an opinion, as indicated in Redgrave, may not be actionable, the wiser course in dealing with the decision not to place Free Stamp would be to make as little public statement as possible. Whatever message others would take from Standard Oil’s decision not to put Free Stamp in front of its building would be that which those others read into the decision and not a message directly or explicitly intended and stated by Standard Oil.”⁴

A U.S. court has yet to side with an artist objecting to the move of a sculpture claimed to be site specific.