Black Women Artists Engage In Legal War

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

March 22, 2024

Two Black artists with comparable types are locked in a authorized warfare over who’s copying the opposite and spreading conspiracy theories.

Two Black artists with comparable types are locked in a bitter authorized warfare over who’s allegedly copying the opposite and spreading “false” conspiracy theories.

The authorized battle between Deborah Roberts and Lynthia Edwards took new heights on Monday, March 11, when Edwards filed a counterclaim towards Roberts for alleged defamation, ArtNet reviews. Roberts was the primary to file a copyright infringement lawsuit towards Edwards and her gallery, the Richard Beavers Gallery, accusing them of copying her art work.

Nevertheless, based on Edwards, her art work is rooted in her upbringing as a Black woman within the South, and whereas she and Roberts share widespread influences, just like the Black collage artist Romare Bearden and the German Dada collage artist Hannah Höch, works by the 2 artists solely possess “superficial similarity.”

In Roberts’ preliminary lawsuit, she alleged that Edwards was enlisted by the Richard Beavers Gallery to repeat her works. Edwards denies these claims and accuses Roberts of monitoring her artwork apply by a personal investigator unbeknownst to her. Her lawsuit calls out Roberts for allegedly utilizing “a barrage of social media posts and personal messages to unfold her false conspiracy idea” and even stopping the lesser-known artist from displaying at Expo Chicago and the Park Avenue Armory Present.

“Emboldened by the success of her large lie, Roberts has gone as far as to say that Edwards has copied Roberts’s newer use of black backgrounds in her works, which Roberts has mentioned she started throughout COVID,” Edwards’s attorneys mentioned.

They highlighted a 2019 Instagram put up displaying one in all Edwards’ collages with a black background.

New York gallerist Stephen Friedman is listed as a third-party defendant in Edwards’ lawsuit for allegedly serving to Roberts unfold her “large lie” by telling her in 2022 that her rival was “gaining floor in [her] market.” The counterclaim additionally features a transcript of a voicemail Roberts despatched to Beavers shortly after he started representing the Alabama artist the place she threatened to go public along with her copyright claims.

“I see that you just’re representing that woman in Pinson, Alabama, [Edwards] who’s ripping off my work. And I did get an lawyer on her. We researched. She has no cash. That’s the one purpose I haven’t sued her,” Roberts allegedly mentioned within the voicemail.

“However I’m telling you proper now: If she continues to indicate my work and do my work, I’m gonna make it public. Public. The New York Occasions. I don’t care what I’ve to do. I’m gonna squash this.”

Roberts is accused of calling Edwards a “h*e” and the “bi*ch who’s copying me” in private and non-private messages, in addition to recruiting widespread artist Amy Sherald to defame Edwards.

“That is ridiculous,” Sherald wrote below an Instagram put up celebrating Edwards’s artwork. “It’s a straight up Deborah Roberts copy.”

“Sure, if the gallery actually wished to assist her they need to be serving to her develop her personal voice and never copying my work,” Roberts responded.

Roberts presently has one in all her items on show as a part of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys’ “GIANTS” exhibit that’s being featured on the Brooklyn Museum. From the {couples}’ Dean Assortment, they’ve displayed over 100 main artworks by Black American, African, and African diasporic artists.

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