Singapore — On Saturday (Nov 13), the organiser of the Kaws:Holiday Singapore exhibition was served a court order to stop the event and any sale or distribution of its merchandise. The news came a day before it was supposed to open to the public.
Singapore non-profit arts organisation The Ryan Foundation has sued the Hong Kong-based organisers, AllRightsReserved (ARR), for alleged breach of the foundation’s intellectual-property rights and a breach of confidence.
However, ARR responded to the allegations, calling them “groundless.”
The event organisers added it was in the process of seeking urgent legal advice to challenge the order, reported Today.
It’s hard to miss the exhibition at the Float@Marina Bay, featuring a 42-metre inflatable sculpture designed by a United States artist Brian Donnell, also known as Kaws.
Kaws the sculpture has over 3.6 million followers on Instagram and has toured Japan, Seoul, Taipei, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Doha in the past.
The Kaws reclining version hugging a miniature Kaws inflatable was scheduled to be on display in Singapore from Nov 13 – 21.
The Ryan Foundation revealed having visited Hong Kong in 2019 to discuss bringing Kaws to Singapore.
They had submitted details of the exhibition to ARR, including contact details of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) as well as other key point persons.
Founding director of The Ryan Foundation, Ryan Su, said that they had received the injunction papers on Friday night, serving it to ARR on Saturday afternoon.
“But up to 7:30 pm, they have still continued with the exhibition… and they still let people in to look around,” said Mr Su to Today.
According to the court order, ARR was told to stop all advertising and publicity on the event.
However, Kaws said in a statement that he has no contractual agreement with The Ryan Foundation, noting the claims were baseless.
ARR noted that the third party created the allegations to “cause interruption” to the exhibition.
“Our company is in the process of seeking urgent legal advice and will apply to court to challenge the prohibitory injunction order,” said a Kaws representative.
“Our company takes this incident very seriously and will take all possible steps to ensure that this exhibition can progress in accordance with the laws of Singapore.”
In an Instagram post on Saturday, Kaws thanked the public for coming to the opening of Kaws Holiday: Singapore.
“This is my seventh holiday project with @arr.allrightsreserved and we have been talking about wanting to exhibit in Singapore for years. It’s nice to see it finally come to life,” the post added. /TISG
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