Chinese artist Ai Weiwei awarded US$258,000 in damages from Volkswagen dealer in Denmark for advertising infringement
- Dealer used photos of VW cars by ‘Soleil Levant’, the artist’s Copenhagen installation that was made from 3,500 life jackets
A Danish court on Wednesday ordered a Volkswagen dealer to pay Chinese artist Ai Weiwei more than €230,000 (US$258,000) in damages for using one of the artist’s works in an advert without authorisation.
In 2017, SMC – the dealer – used a photo of a Volkswagen Polo parked in front of an Ai Weiwei art installation in Copenhagen to promote the launch of a new car on its website and in the dealer’s customer magazine.
The work by the 61-year-old dissident artist, titled Soleil Levant, made up of 3,500 life jackets collected from refugees who arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos between 2015 and 2016, crammed into the windows of the Charlottenborg art gallery.
The court held that commercial use of the work was a “clear contradiction of the considerations and thoughts behind the work”, noting the misuse could be harmful to the artist’s reputation.
“SMC’s use of the piece of art constituted a violation of the marketing law’s paragraph … on good marketing practises,” the tribunal ruled.