The ongoing lawsuit against Volkswagen by the artist and political and human rights activist, Ai Weiwei came to a close in mid-July this year with a landfall win in favour of Ai Weiwei. The dispute arose when in October 2017 Volkswagen Denmark used an unauthorised photo of Ai We Wei’s installation “Soleil Levant” in an advertisement for its VW Polo campaign.
The artwork at the centre of the conflict, “Soleil Levant” was created in 2017 for World Refugee Day and could be seen installed at Copenhagen’s Kunsthal Charlottenborg from June 20 to October 1 that year. The work comprised of 3,500 lifejackets used by refugees who fled to Lesvos, Greece, escaping persecution and conflict.
“I am suing Volkswagen in Denmark for violating my intellectual property and moral rights,” wrote Ai Weiwei online, after the unauthorised artwork was circulated in a magazine as a print advertisement and viewed by more than 200,000 people.
Ai Weiwei went on to explain that, “I was astonished by Volkswagen’s brazen violations of my intellectual property and moral rights. Since November 2017 I have been trying to resolve the matter with Volkswagen. In more than one year of fruitless negotiation, they only engaged in arrogant gestures to trivialise their guilt and dismiss the matter.
“Volkswagen and other multinational corporations have tremendous bargaining power in intellectual property protection as well as environmental and human rights.” Ai Wewei went on to write, “They are not above the law.”
In a danish court this month, Ai Wewei was awarded $1.5 Million Danish Krone (DKK) for the breach and a further compensation of 250,000 DKK. In relation, the artist stated that, “Intellectual property protection lies at the heart of a society that values human invention and makes our useful accumulation of knowledge possible.”