A court in Munich has ruled that painter Götz Valien must be named as the co-author of three paintings alongside Martin Kippenberger, who was long thought to these works’ sole maker.
Kippenberger, who died in 1997, was one of the most famous German artists of the past half-century, and so this lawsuit could significantly reshape how scholars consider a few well-known pieces by him.
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The pieces in question are versions of the work Paris Bar, which depicts the beloved Berlin watering hole where Kippenberger organized a show after being kept out of a 1991 exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum. Paris Bar represents Kippenberger’s art displayed alongside his friends’ in a setting they frequented.
Like other paintings by Kippenberger, the Paris Bar paintings are considered valuable. The first, made in 1991, was sold at auction in London in 2009 for £2.3 million; the second, made in 1993 after the Centre Pompidou wanted to show the 1991 one, is now owned by French mega-collector François Pinault.
There are three Paris Bar paintings, two of which contain only Kippenberger’s signature. The third, from 2010, is not as well-known as the others and has been credited to Valien. In fact, all of the works were executed by Valien, who, according to the lawsuit he brought in 2022, was painting on commission for Kippenberger while Valien was employed by Werner-Werbung, a company that produces imagery to be used in advertising.
Valien’s lawyers had attempted to compare the lawsuit to a recent one in France that involved Maurizio Cattelan. That suit was brought by the sculptor Daniel Druet, who claimed he was the true maker of a piece depicting a kneeling Adolf Hitler. A Paris court tossed out Druet’s suit, saying that he had been working for hire for Cattelan, so only Cattelan should be considered the work’s sole author.
The Kippenberger lawsuit has now panned out differently, with the Munich court ruling in Valien’s favor. According to dpa, the decision read, “When creating the paintings, the plaintiff had enough leeway for his own creative work.”
Now, Valien must be named as a co-author of the Paris Bar paintings alongside Kippenberger by the latter artist’s estate. Meanwhile, Valien will also stop exhibiting the 2010 version only under his own name.
Source: artnews.com