Vermont Law School can cover the mural, we need to demand access!
In an order last week, a judge denied a preliminary injunction filed by artist Sam Kerson to stop his mural at Vermont Law School from being covered on the grounds that covering it would violate a federal statute protecting artwork. Kerson, the judge wrote on March 10, “is unlikely to succeed on the merits in this case.”
VLS is free to install acoustic panels on a frame in front of the mural, which the school says will not touch or damage the painting in any way. Kerson, who filed suit in December in U.S. District Court, wanted to halt that construction for the duration of the trial.
His attorneys argued in a hearing on February 24 that it was unknown whether this installation could cause deterioration over time due to lack of air circulation, and further contended that permanently removing the mural from public viewing would violate the Visual Artists Rights Act, 1990 federal law that protects an artist's work from "intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification.”
The VLS attorneys countered that the school is not obligated to display the murals under VARA, just as the owner of a painting is not obligated to keep it hanging on a wall.
Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled that Kerson’s attorneys hadn’t provided evidence that covering the mural in this manner would harm it, and wrote that it was unlikely that Kerson would prevail in his case, as the protections of VARA “do not prohibit the actions proposed by VLS.”