The artist Danh Vo and the Dutch collector Bert Kreuk have dropped legal proceedings over a disputed site-specific commission, according to press reports. Vo has cancelled his appeal against a court ruling that ordered him to create a “large and impressive” work for Kreuk’s collection. “The parties will act as if the judgement has been annulled,” Vo told ARTnews in a statement. “Each party will bear its own costs.”
Kreuk filed a lawsuit against Vo last September, claiming that the Danish-Vietnamese artist had agreed in January 2013 to make a new work for an exhibition of his collection at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague later that year. The collector planned to acquire the work after the show, but Vo sent an existing sculpture, Fiat Veritas, on loan to the museum. Kreuk took out an injunction to prevent the work being returned to the artist.
On 24 June, a Rotterdam court overturned the injunction but ordered Vo to produce a “large and impressive” work for Kreuk’s collection within one year and deliver it to his then gallery, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, by 8 July 2016. The artist faced charges of €10,000 a day (up to €350,000) if he failed to meet the deadlines. Vo, who has now parted ways with the Berlin-based dealer, appealed the decision, which he said violated his artistic integrity. His lawyer, Gert-Jan van den Bergh, said at the time that the ruling was unprecedented in Dutch legal history.
