Florence, Italy –
Michelangelo’s David has been a prominent figure in Italian culture since its completion in 1504. But in today’s era of fast money, curators worry that the marble statue’s religious and political significance is being diminished by the thousands of refrigerator magnets and other souvenirs sold in Florence. focusing on David’s genitals.
Galleria dell’Accademia director Cecilie Hollberg has positioned herself as a defender of David since her arrival at the museum in 2015, quick to target those who benefit from his image, often in ways she considers “degrading.”
In that sense, she herself is a kind of David against the Goliath of unbridled capitalism with her army of street vendors and souvenir shop operators selling aprons with the statue’s naked figure, T-shirts with obscene gestures and ubiquitous figures. often in neon Pop Art.
At Hollberg’s urging, the state prosecutor’s office in Florence has launched a series of court cases invoking Italy’s historic cultural heritage code, which protects artistic treasures from unauthorized and derogatory commercial use. The Academy has won hundreds of thousands of euros in damages since 2017, Hollberg said.
“There was great joy around the world at this truly unique victory that we managed to achieve, and questions and inquiries from all sides about how we achieved it, for advice on how to move forward,” he told The Associated Press.
Legal action to protect masterpieces in other museums followed, not without debate, including Leonardo’s “Vitruvian Man,” Donatello’s David and Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”
The decisions challenge a widely held practice that intellectual property rights are protected for a specific period before entering the public domain: the artist’s life plus 70 years, according to the Berne Convention signed by more than 180 countries, including Italy.
More broadly, the decisions raise the question of whether institutions should be arbiters of taste and to what extent freedom of expression is being limited.
“This raises not only legal questions, but also philosophical questions. What does cultural heritage mean? What degree of control do you want to give institutions over ideas and images that are in the public domain? said Thomas C. Danziger, a New York-based art market lawyer.
He pointed to Andy Warhol’s famous series inspired by Leonardo’s “Last Supper.” “Are you going to stop artists like Warhol from creating a derivative work?” Danziger asked. “Many people would see this as a land grab by the Italian courts to control and monetize works of art in the public domain for which payment was never intended.”
Italy’s cultural code is unusual in its scope, essentially extending the author’s copyright in perpetuity to the museum or institution that owns it. The Vatican has similar legislative protections for its masterpieces and seeks remedies through its judicial system for any unauthorized reproduction, including for commercial use and to harm the dignity of the work, a spokesman said.
Elsewhere in Europe, Greece has a similar law, adopted in 2020, that requires permission to use images of historical sites or artifacts for commercial use and prohibits the use of images that “alter” or “offend” monuments in any way. .
France’s Louvre museum, home to some oft-replicated masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” and the Venus de Milo, notes that its collection largely dates back to before 1848, placing them in the public domain according to the French law.
Court cases have debated whether Italian law violates a 2019 European Union directive that states that any work of art no longer protected by copyright falls into the public domain, meaning “everyone should be free to make , use and share copies of that work.”
The EU Commission has not addressed the issue, but a spokesperson told the AP that it is currently checking “the conformity of national laws implementing the copyright directive” and would examine whether Italy’s cultural heritage code interferes with your application.
Hollberg won his first case against ticket resellers who used David’s image to sell marked ticket packages outside the Academy gates. He has also taken aim at GQ Italia for imposing a model’s face on David’s body, and at luxury fashion brand Longchamp’s daring Florence edition of its signature “Le Pliage” bag that features David’s most intimate details. .
Longchamp noted that the performance was “not without irony” and said the bag was “an opportunity to express with amusing lightness the creative force that has always animated this wonderful city.”
No matter how many lawsuits Hollberg has filed (he doesn’t say how many), the proliferation of David portraits continues.
“I regret that there is so much ignorance and so little respect in the use of a work that for centuries has been praised for its beauty, for its purity, for its meanings, its symbols, to make products of bad taste, of plastic,” said Hollberg. .
Building on Hollberg’s success and strengthened by improved search engine technology, the private entity that guards Florence’s iconic Cathedral has begun going after commercial companies that use the famous dome for unauthorized and sometimes illegal purposes. degrading clothing, including men’s and women’s underwear.
So far, cease-and-desist letters have been enough to achieve compliance without going to court, adding an additional half a million euros ($541,600) a year to revenues exceeding €30 million ($32 million). Luca Bagnoli, president of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, told the AP.
“In general, we are in favor of freedom of artistic expression,” Bagnoli said. “When it comes to reinterpreted copies, it is a little more difficult to understand where artistic freedom ends and our image rights begin.”
Italy’s cultural heritage code in its current form has been in place since 2004, and while the Hollberg cases were not the first, they have represented an acceleration, experts said.
The jurisprudence is still being tested. A Venice court ordered German puzzle maker Ravensburger to stop using the “Vitruvian Man” image in the first case involving a company outside Italy. The ruling implicitly rejected Ravensburger’s argument that the law was incompatible with the EU copyright directive, lawyers said.
Experts say the aggressive stance could backfire, discouraging the licensing of Italian artworks, a source of income, while limiting the reproduction of masterpieces that serve as cultural ambassadors.
“There is a risk for Italy, because a work of art can be selected that is not covered by this legislation,” said Vittorio Cerulli Irelli, an intellectual property lawyer at Trevisan & Cuonzo in Rome. “In many cases, it is the same to use a Leonardo painting that is in the UK or a Leonardo painting that is in Italy. Just choose the easiest option.”
Associated Press writers Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, and Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to this report.