It was a topical subject because of the auctioning of Slave
Labour, which I covered in my post Selling Banksy street art
Now it is topical again with Friday’s High Court judgment in
the case concerning Banksy’s mural called
Art Buff. The artwork had been painted in Folkestone on the wall of an amusement
arcade called Dreamland. The owners of
the business, the Godden Family, had the artwork cut out under the supervision
of an art dealer Robin Barton who specialises in such trade, under the name
Bankrobber. It then came into the hands
of the New York based Kessler Gallery who brought it to Art Basel in Miami
where it was exhibited with a price of US$720,000.
Meanwhile, local forces gathered in Folkestone, a town not
over-endowed with art. Proceedings were
brought by a local charity, Creative Foundation, which has the objective of
regenerating the town through creativity and the arts. The issue relied on was one that was
anticipated in our article, in which we said:
Ownership
In law, land includes buildings and fixtures, and once paint
is on a wall, it becomes part of the land. Therefore, as soon as the artist
creates his work, it belongs to the land owner. The owner for this purpose will
be either a freeholder or leaseholder, and their respective rights and
obligations regarding the art will depend on the terms of the lease, which
would almost certainly have been drafted without any thought of street art.
It seems that in the Art Buff case, the Goddens were
leaseholders, that is tenants. The
artwork having become part of the building, and therefore part of the land, and
absent any other agreement, it belonged to the ultimate freeholder, who
presumably was willing to co-operate with Creative Foundation. The charity then succeeded in getting an
injunction from the court for the returning of the work to Folkestone.
