KAWS:Holiday Organiser Suing Foundation That Tried to Sue Them Initially

If you’ve lived on this planet for a considerable amount of time, you’d know that things don’t always turn out the way you planned.

A trip to McDonald’s to grab a quick snack often devolves into a ravenous feeding frenzy, where you stuff McSpicy after McSpicy in your mouth.

Or when you take someone to court to sue them and end up getting sued yourself.

That’s right, the sue-ee has become the sue-er.

KAWS:Holiday Organiser Suing Foundation That Tried to Sue Them Initially

AllRightsReserved (ARR), the organiser of the last month’s Kaws:Holiday Singapore exhibition at the Float@Marina Bay, is suing The Ryan Foundation (TRF).

ARR initiated legal proceedings yesterday (14 Dec) for what they believe is defamation on TRF’s part. It is also suing the foundation’s founders and directors—Mr Ryan Su and Mr Adrian Chan.

Filed in the High Court, the lawsuit is over various “statements and publications” that were made against ARR during the Kaws exhibition.

The foundation has yet to respond to the lawsuit, saying it will do so at the appropriate time.

What Happened

At the heart of this legal dispute is the Kaws:Holiday exhibition—an event where a 42m-long inflatable was on display for all to see at The Float @ Marina Bay.

Citing a breach of intellectual property rights and breach of confidence, TRF, a non-profit arts organisation, successfully sought a court order on 13 Nov – the first day of the exhibition – to stop the event and sales of related merchandise.

TRF and ARR were reportedly in talks back in 2019 over the event, and it’s here where the foundation claims to have come up with and discussed the design for the merchandise as well as introducing the organisers to their contacts in the Singapore government.

Both Michael Donelly—the artist behind Kaws—and AAR called these allegations groundless.

This is why ARR went ahead with the exhibition, prompting the Ryan Foundation to initiate contempt of court proceedings. It later closed temporarily, after it was served the interim injunction.

But in a twist even my personal clairvoyant didn’t see coming, the judge ruled in the ARR’s favour, and lifted the order to stop the exhibition.

And it only got worse from there for TRF.

ARR revealed that the court had also ordered the Ryan Foundation to pay ARR’s legal costs, as well as a further inquiry into the damages sustained by AllRightsReserved by reason of the injunction.

And of course, they also have this new defamation suit to deal with. To think, if they had just let the exhibition go on as scheduled…

As I said, things don’t always turn out the way you planned. 

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Featured Image: Facebook (Plural Art Mag)