The author of a work of art : the one who imagines it or the one who executes it ?

Is the author of a work of art the one who imagines it, or the one who executes it?

A questioning which will perhaps find an answer on July 8 by the Judicial Court of Paris which will have the pleasure to arbitrate this debate as old as art, after the hearing of this Friday May 3. The art world is shivering…

Here are the facts:

 Maurizio Cattelan, Italian star of contemporary art and provocation is the subject of a complaint* by one of his regular sculptors, the Frenchman Daniel Druet, for infringement of the latter’s copyright.

(*complaint also targeting his gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin and the Monnaie de Paris)

Daniel Druet, twice winner of the Prix de Rome, has produced a number of works for the Musée Grévin and has also created nine sculptures of astonishing realism for Maurizio Cattelan between 1999 and 2006, for which he claims exclusive authorship and the sum of 4 million Euros. This legal battle has been going on for four years already, around works such as Him (2001), representing a penitent Adolf Hitler, the size of a child, praying on his knees, or La Nona Ora (1999) showing the Pope struck by a meteorite.

The two artists, the conceptual commissioner and the academic executor, illustrate an old debate that is raging again: is the artist the one who technically creates the work or the one who conceives it?

Is the fact that Mr. Druet shaped these sculptures with virtuosity enough to make him the author of the work incorporating them?

Many artists have always used subcontractors without confusing them with the creators…

The work of Mr. Druet was not hidden and was always paid on estimate from the first collaboration (without contract however, loophole exploited by the lawyer of Mr. Druet).  Mr. Cattelan and his gallery owner have taken all the risks linked to these sulphurous sculptures.

Mr. Cattelan’s attorney considers that “the material realization of the work takes second place to its conception“, that “Mr. Druet has a know-how (…) but this know-how does not give any creative choice because all he is going to do is to follow instructions“, “instructions of a mathematical precision” given by Mr. Cattelan to Mr. Druet, who said himself that he followed them to the letter.

“It’s not about saying that every idea should be protected, it’s about saying that when an idea materializes into important choices, there is protection”.

The staging of the sculptures would therefore create the work. The pope delivered by Mr. Druet was in fact broken in two by Mr. Cattelan and displayed in an extremely precise attitude.

Do the works of Mr. Cattelan exist without Mr. Druet? Yes, if we consider, for example, that not all the copies of La Nona Ora were made by Mr. Druet.

The lawyer of Mr. Druet invokes that “If we wanted an executor, we would not have taken Daniel Druet, who is not the cheapest on the market. (…) He sculpted Coluche, Bocuse, Depardieu. He is the only one to have sculpted François Mitterrand during his lifetime (…) He has, in his thumbs, this artistic magic“.

Referring to the statue of Adolf Hitler, Mr. Druet realized “this look that is terrible, that is what scares (…) I think that Mr. Cattelan can claim rights on the installation“, but “there is a creative work behind“.

In other words, without sculpture, the scenography does not put anything in scene.

The question of the intellectual property in the conceptual art is thus played, a matter to be followed…

− Sylvie BOYER, Paralegal at Mark & Law

Sources :

• Maurizio Cattelan ou Daniel Druet : qui est l’artiste ? [Maurzio Cattelan or Daniel Druet : who is the artist?]. Le Point [online]. May 13, 2022. [Accessed on May 17, 2022]. Accessible by clicking here. 
• Affaire Maurizio Cattelan : un juge statuera de la paternité des œuvres pensées par l’artiste mais exécutées par un autre [Maurizio Cattelan case: a judge will rule on the authorship of works thought by the artist but executed by another]. FranceInfo Culture [online]. May 13, 2022. [Accessed on May 17, 2022]. Accessible by clicking here.
• Le sculpteur Daniel Druet revendique, devant le tribunal, la paternité d’œuvres signées Maurizio Cattelan [The sculptor Daniel Druet claims, in court, that authorship of works signed Maurizio Cattelan]. FranceInter [online]. May 13, 2022. [Accessed on May 17, 2022]. Accessible by clicking here.