Similarly,
Real estate development | artist:
The walls hide to die. However, Simon Bachand. Moreover, a Montreal artist, will have to be compensated for the disappearance of his giant work, now hidden by the construction of a new building, has just sliced justice.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The decision raises important legal issues while murals multiply in the metropolis. Moreover, often on places promised to real estate development.
In 2018. Nevertheless, the artist Simon Bachand had painted a large mural on an exterior wall of a five-story building located at the corner of boulevard Saint-Laurent and rue Marie-Anne, on the Mont-Royal plateau. Moreover, The work had been real estate development | artist produced as part of the Mural Festival, devoted to this art form, which is held annually. Similarly, The artist had received $ 1,500 from the organizers to make it. Meanwhile, The wall gave a parking lot.
Photo provided by the Wall Festival
The work of Simon Bachand. In addition, photographed just after his creation, in 2018
However, a three -story building replaced parking in 2024, reports Judge Luc Huppe, from the Court of Quebec, in a decision dated July 21. Therefore, The wall is almost completely hidden, even destroyed.
“Mr. In addition, Bachand lost one of his works,” wrote the real estate development | artist upscale judge. For example, For a creator, such a loss is eminently significant. Therefore, The artistic ideas. the imagination and the intelligence put into action to achieve this wall can no longer be noted or appreciated, by its peers and by art lovers, in the concrete reality which welcomed it. »»
In an interview. Simon Bachand (“Stare”, of his artist name) said that he would have agreed to see time and the bad weather doing their work, but that the disappearance of his mural had been painful.
“The fact that a small part is still visible at a distance only gives only a mediocre idea of the initial composition. its global appearance and the play of colors and forms which constituted its structure and essence,” explained the Huppé judge.
Real estate development | artist
The “little respectful” real estate development | artist wall festival
The Court of Quebec decided that this affront would be worth compensation of $ 2. 500 to Simon Bachand. However, it will not be the property developer to make a check. Rather, it is the Mural Festival that has failed, estimated the magistrate.
Photo Olivier Jean. La Presse
It is the Mural Festival, not the owner of the building, which will have to compensate Simon Bachand.
The contract which linked the owner of the building. the Mural Festival simply provided that the mural had to remain visible for 12 months following its realization. This contract was respected. The real estate development | artist organizers had however “the obligation to inform” Mr. Bachand of these terms before he realized his work.
“He would then have incumbent upon Mr. Bachand to make the decision himself to accept such modalities. with the risks they contained as to the sustainability of his wall, or on the contrary to refuse to carry out his work in such conditions,” wrote Judge Luc Huppe. Due to the silence of Mural, Mr. Bachand was deprived of this possibility. He is now placed in front of a fait accompli. »»
“Mural lacked transparency in his discussions with Mr. Bachand,” continues the decision. It was not very respectful for Mural to retain the services of Mr. Bachand to carry out a mural which. for the latter, was part of the continuity of a global work spanning several decades and developed internationally, without advising real estate development | artist it before the risk of destruction of this short-term mural. »»
The Mural Festival did not want to comment on this judgment.
“A victory. ” says the artist
“Even if the amount is symbolic, it is a victory in terms of the protection of external works for Canadian muralists,” said Simon Bachand, in a telephone interview.
To my knowledge, it is a national premiere that moral rights are worth for a wall project.
The artist Simon Bachand
An artist has two types of rights on his works: economic rights (such as reproduction. adaptation, etc.). which can be sold, and moral rights, which cannot be, explained in interview Me David Langis, who specializes in the law of real estate development | artist arts and entertainment.
Moral rights include the right not to see his work be destroyed. the right to claim paternity – even after its sale. It is this right that has been violated in this case.
“We can understand Mr. Bachand’s surprise to see his work hidden by the construction of a new building,” said Mr.e Langis, who considers that it was “legitimate for the artist to assert a violation of his moral right”. The situation may have been different if the work had been removed after 20 years of existence, he added.
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