‘The Vatican Stole My Jesus Image’ Says Artist In A Lawsuit

WHEN the Vatican unveiled a new Easter stamp last year, it clearly hadn’t considered copyright issues regarding street art – and is now being sued for using an image of Jesus created by Alessia Babrow, above.

Which is a tad ironic as the Catholic Church fiercely protects its own intellectual property rights.

When the stamp was issued, Catholic website Aleteia announced that it featured:

A graffiti rendition of ‘The Ascension,’ by Heinrich Hofmann (1824-1911). The ‘street art’ is located near Rome’s Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II. In the street art version, the words ‘Just Use It’ are superimposed over Christ’s Sacred Heart. It is apparently a play on Nike’s slogan ‘Just Do It.’

The report did not mention that Hofmann’s image was given a makeover by the Italian-South African artist, who glued it onto a bridge near the Vatican in 2019.

A year later, according to Religion News, she was shocked to learn that the Vatican had purloined it – and last month she brought a lawsuit against the Vatican’s telecommications office in Rome, alleging it was wrongfully profiting off her creativity and violating the intent of her artwork.

The lawsuit, which is seeking nearly €130,000 euros ($160,000) in damages, said the Vatican never responded officially to Babrow’s attempts to negotiate a settlement after she discovered it had used her image without consent.

Babrow said:

I couldn’t believe it. I honestly thought it was a joke. The real shock was that you don’t expect certain things from certain organisations.

Tables turned

RN points out that:

The Vatican is home to some of the greatest artworks ever made, and it vigorously enforces its copyright over everything from the Sistine Chapel to Michelangelo’s Pieta.

But now the tables have turned, and the Vatican stands accused of violating the intellectual property rights of a street artist.

The Vatican stamp office declined to comment on the lawsuit, said its chief, Massimo Olivieri. The Vatican press office also declined requests for comment.

Copyright lawyers familiar with the case say it is an important benchmark for Italy and evidence of the increasing appreciation for Banksy-style street art. They say it underscores that even anonymous graffiti or “guerrilla art” deserves protection against unauthorised corporate merchandising, or, in this case, Catholic Church merchandising.

Massimo Sterpi, whose Rome firm has represented Banksy’s Pest Control agency in copyright cases, said intellectual property law in much of Europe and the United States protects artists’ rights even if a piece was created on public or private property illegally.

He added:

The law considers it irrelevant if the work is made on paper, canvas or a wall or a bridge. People who commercialise street art without making good-faith efforts to find the artist and negotiate use of the image do so at their own risk and peril.

The work is part of Babrow’s “Just Use It” project, which began in 2013 and has included similar hearts on Buddhas, the Hindu deity Ganesha and the Virgin Mary that can be found on walls, stairwells and bridges around Rome. A huge version also graces a palazzo scaffolding.

The concept of the project, Babrow says, is to “promote the intelligence and the brain of the heart” in a holistic, non-judgmental way.

Lawyer Mauro Lanfranconi argued in the lawsuit that by appropriating the image to promote the Catholic Church, the Vatican “irrevocably distorted” Babrow’s message that there are no universal truths.

The Vatican initially minted 80,000 stamps of the Christ image at €1.15 apiece, according to the lawsuit. The stamps and a commemorative folder were still on sale at the Vatican post office last week and were prominently featured at the cashier’s desk as a promotional item for sale.

Olivieri, the Vatican’s numismatic chief, told an Italian journalist that he took a photo of Babrow’s Christ when he spotted it while riding his moped and decided to use it for the Easter stamp in an apparent attempt to appeal to a new generation of stamp enthusiasts.

In comments reported by the journalist in the online arts blog Artslife.com, Olivieri said he feared Holy See higher-ups might resist using a hip, graffiti-style stamp for Easter but they enthusiastically when along with the idea.

Babrow’s lawyers sent a registered letter and an email to the philatelic and numismatic office identifying Babrow as the artist, the lawsuit says, but there was no written response to her request to negotiate terms of use, prompting her to sue.

Babrow stressed that the lawsuit isn’t an attack on the Catholic Church or the Vatican, but rather an attempt to protect her rights and make sure her artwork wasn’t being used to finance things outside her control.

Copyright lawyers said the Vatican’s status as a sovereign state is unlikely to protect it from an Italian court’s jurisdiction, given the commercial activity and alleged damage to Babrow occurred in Italy.