Danish artist guilty of copyright infringement for pornographic collage

von Hornsleth in front of one of his works

A Danish court has found the artist Kristian von Hornsleth guilty of infringing the copyright of the photographer Lizette Kabré by using one of her shots in a pornographic collage - which was designed to criticise a journalist who Von Hornsleth had taken issue with over a critcal review.

The High Court in Denmark upheld an earlier decision by the Copenhagen City Court and ordered Von Hornsleth to pay Kabré DKr30,000 (approximately €4,000), plus DKr20,000 (€2,700) to cover the photographer’s legal costs.

Denmark's 'most controversial' artist, who has widely used pornographic images combined into his work, as well as images of celebrities such as Kylie Minogue and Matthew McConaughey, said he produced the collage, which features a photograph of the arts journalist Camilla Stockmann superimposed onto a sexually graphic scene, in response to an article Stockmann wrote for the Danish newspaper Politiken. In court, Von Hornsleth said the collage was his artistic reaction to Stockmann’s article and shoukd be protected by freedom of expression. He said he wanted to reply to her in his own language and the pornographic work showed how critics “fuck” others when they criticise their work. Kabré described the collage as “a personal attack motivated by revenge”. 

von Hornsleth’s latest work 'Deep Storage Project', which was built using the DNA of thousands of volunteers, has taken him many years to complete. He now plans to throw it into the Mariana Trench where it will be buried 11,000M under the sea. 

From The Art Newspaper