The Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has filed a countersuit in his ongoing legal battle with the Los Angeles dealer and artist agent Stefan Simchowitz and the Dublin dealer Jonathan Ellis King. The case centres on six lots of jute sack material, which Mahama sold to Simchowitz and Ellis King for £90,000 in 2013. The artist repurposes the coarse brown sacks that are used to transport coal in Ghana, stitching them together to create tapestry-like installations.
Mahama claims that Simchowitz and Ellis King “mutilated” his work by cutting it up into around 300 pieces, and stretching and framing them to sell individually “all without any required written authorisation” from the artist. The countersuit, filed on 22 March, alleges the dealers violated the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which protects an artist from “any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work”.
Mahama is also seeking an injunction preventing them from selling any more of the works. After a 2014 exhibition, 27 pieces were sold at around $16,700 each. “Mahama signed over 200 examples of the works so I have no idea how VARA even applies,” Simchowitz says.
The dealers first filed a lawsuit in June 2015, claiming that Mahama’s declaration that the works are inauthentic could potentially cost them $4.5m—what they estimate to be the value of the unsold works. They say Mahama orally agreed to create “a series of smaller, unique art works” from four of the six lots of jute material, which they would have “the exclusive right to sell”. According to the original complaint, Mahama signed the 294 “individual works” at Ellis King’s gallery.
Simchowitz and Ellis King are demanding the artist authenticate the works. They also allege Mahama breached an agreement by secretly creating a new series similar to the stretched works and selling them to a collector in Los Angeles. Mahama says he is due to travel to Los Angeles at the end of the month for mediation. “I am not sure of the outcome yet, but I will stand by the integrity of my practice whichever way,” he says.
