Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Handbags and Lawsuits – More from Murakami + Louis Vuitton
Images: Jessica Michibata at Honeyee
UPDATE: 1/2 Murakami Vuitton Lawsuit Dismissed
A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge has thrown out one of Clint Arthur’s two opportunistic claims against Louis Vuitton and Los Angeles MOCA. The dismissed class action suit concerned lithographic prints by Takashi Murakami, bought at the the museum’s store during the exhibit ©Murakami. Arthur alleged violation of California’s Fine Prints Act, which requires dealers to certify authenticity and provide information concerning how works are produced and how rare they are. Judge William Highberger said Arthur had no standing to sue the museum because he didn’t accept MOCA’s offer to refund the $2,655 he paid for three prints.
The second federal lawsuit is still pending, and concerns “print editions made from the same material as Murakami’s handbag and accessory collection for Louis Vuitton, sold at the their special pop-up shop set up in MOCA. Arthur says that Louis Vuitton committed fraud by passing off left over production material as fine art editions.
Read more in the LA Times
Original Post:
To coincide with Takashi Murakami’s new Multicolore Spring Pallette Collection for Louis Vuitton, the luxury brand has rebranded its flagship Tokyo store with the artist’s designs. Murakami’s Kaiai Kiki studio has also created a new animated short, entitled Superflat First Love (a sequel to the previously released Superflat Mongram, which can be seen in its entirety here), now available for download on Louis Vuitton’s Japanese mobile phone site.
It is doubtful the new looks will make their way onto any fine art editions edition, as they did during Murakami’s 2008 retrospective at the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art. A lawsuit against Louis Vuitton claims the company committed fraud by violating California’s Fine Prints Act when it sold signed “prints” made from leftover handbag and accessory material during Murakami’s museum retrospective at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
Tetsuya Suzuki at Honeyee
On a personal note, we here at TAC, along with several collector friends, remember quickly disregarding these shlock pieces at the museum. Some of us instead opted for the numerous lithographs on sale – which, coincidentally have been selling at auction ever since. Long story short, anyone spending money on art, no matter how cheap or expensive, should do their due diligence and know what they are buying. An artist or dealer can pass off anything they want as art – that’s the nature of contemporary art. It’s not their fault when someone chooses to buy a piece of crap and speculates its future value. The LA Times has the full story here and here.
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April 29th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
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