DEALERS STEFAN SIMCHOWITZ AND JONATHAN ELLIS KING SETTLE LAWSUIT AGAINST ARTIST IBRAHIM MAHAMA
In a conclusion to a saga of lawsuits and countersuits, the controversial dealer Stefan Simchowitz along with Dublin-based dealer Jonathan Ellis King and artist Ibrahim Mahama have agreed to settle their dispute out of court, according to Anny Shaw in the Art Newspaper. A California court dismissed the original lawsuit on May 4, ending a drawn out legal battle that began in June 2015 when the pair of dealers sued Mahama for declaring hundreds of his jute sack artworks as inauthentic after Simchowitz and Ellis King broke up a single work composed of multiple sacks into about 300 separate works they could sell individually. The artist’s refusal to authenticate these works potentially cost the dealers around $4.5 million.
Mahama countersued the dealers, claiming that Simchowitz and Ellis King “mutilated” his work by stretching and framing the sacks “all without any required written authorisation” from the artist. The artist’s countersuit also alleged that the dealers violated the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which protects an artist from “any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work.” However, according to Simchowitz and Ellis King’s original complaint, Mahama agreed to create “a series of smaller, unique art works” from four of the six lots of jute material used in the original work, which they would have “the exclusive right to sell,” and that Mahama signed 294 “individual works” at Ellis King’s gallery in December 2014. After an exhibition at the gallery that same month, twenty-seven pieces sold for around $16,700 each. Simchowitz and Ellis King’s suit demanded the artist authenticate the works they wanted to sell, while Mahama was seeking an injunction to prevent the dealers from selling any more pieces from the series.
The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the case has been permanently dismissed in its entirety and both parties are responsible for paying their own costs and legal fees associated with the suits.
