Singapore court orders halt to display of Kaws’ Companion, giant inflatable sculpture, at ‘Kaws: Holiday’ event
- An injunction was served at the unveiling of a 42-metre-long inflatable created by celebrity artist Kaws for a two-week, government-sponsored spectacle
- The organiser of the sculpture’s display, Hong Kong agency AllRightsReserved Limited, is accused of breaching confidentiality and intellectual property rights
Rarely has there been a case of holiday blues of such monumental proportions.
All this attention would be enough to give any public artwork an inflated sense of its own importance, even if it were not the pair of half-clown, half-Mickey Mouse sculptures that the American artist – real name Brian Donnelly – has already turned into a global pop-culture icon.
According to a copy of the court order issued on Thursday and seen by the Post, the project organised by AllRightsReserved Limited (ARR), a creative agency founded by Hongkonger Lam Shu-kam – or SK Lam as he is often known – has been accused by The Ryan Foundation, a Singapore non-profit organisation, of breaching confidentiality and intellectual property rights.
Neither Donnelly nor the Singapore Tourism Board, which backs the outdoor exhibition, are parties to the lawsuit.
The Ryan Foundation, owned by well-known Singapore collectors Ryan Su and Adrian Chan, said on Saturday it had initiated discussions with ARR back in 2019 to bring the inflatable figures to Singapore.
It claims to have introduced the Hong Kong company to Singapore government contacts and says it came up with design ideas for the merchandise, before the project was aborted because a partnership agreement could not be agreed upon.
In a statement on Saturday, Chan said it was “disappointing” that a version of the project went ahead when “confidential information and intellectual property rights, among other things, were at risk of being misused”.
Pop artist Kaws takes giant Companion to Japan on latest leg of Asian tour
“Our victory in court is for all the people who had worked tirelessly on the exhibition since 2019 and who share our purpose of making contemporary art accessible to people in Singapore,” he said.
“The injunction could have been averted if questions were raised and stakeholders consulted. This is truly a case of David & Goliath.”
“This is now being handled by lawyers,” ARR said in a statement on Saturday. “We reserve the right to seek remedies available by law.”
Apart from its collaborations with Kaws and other designers of collectibles, ARR is best known for bringing Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant inflatable rubber duckling to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour in 2013.
