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Koons – The King Of Plagiarism

December 7, 2018

Plagiarism… a word that haunts us throughout our education.  If anything you submit to the teacher closely resembles the words or work of another writer, not only did you likely get an “F’, but there was the threat of being kicked out of your University.

The same thing applies…well, kind of… to the arts.  Jeff Koons, who I’ve now dubbed the King of Plagiarism, has been found guilty of copyright infringement…aka, plagiarism, yet again.

Back in 2015, I wrote about (see below) the French clothing brand Naf Naf suing Koons over his 1988 statue “Fait d’Hiver” which has a striking resemblance to the companies 1985 advertisement titled….”Fait d’hiver.”  I could go on and discuss the similarities, but as they say, a picture(s) is worth a thousand words:

Koons-Fait-dHiver-1988-300x177 pub_naf_naf-300x211

Four years later, the court ruled in favor of Naf Naf and ordered Koons, his company Jeff Koons L.L.C. (because we all know he has a warehouse of artists building his oeuvre), the Pompidou Center (where the work was exhibited for the Venice Biennale in 2011), and a book publisher to pay Mr. Davidovici (Owner of Naf Naf) $170,000.  A small price to pay considering the work sold in 2007 to the Prada Foundation for $4 million.

 

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Comments on the Art Market, Volume 170 – February 2015 – Tales from the Dark Side

Franck Davidovici – has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against American artist, Jeff Koons.  This is the third case brought against the artist claiming his works from his Banality series were plagiarized from other artists.  According to Davidovici, his advertisement for the French clothing company Naf Naf in 1980 featuring a woman laying on her back in the snow with a small pig was recreated by Koons as a porcelain 1988 artwork of Ilona Saller (an Italian porn star) laying in the snow with a small pig approaching her.   Davidovici demands that the work be confiscated and any and all funds ever generated from the work, as well as $300,000 in damages, be paid.

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