Judge Upholds $6.7M Win For 5Pointz Artists Over Whitewashed Work

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — An appeals court judge on Thursday upheld a group of graffiti artists' sweeping, $6.75 million victory over the developer who whitewashed their artwork at the Long Island City complex then known as 5Pointz.

In the 32-page ruling, a judge for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a 2018 decision to award the artists $150,000 for each of the 45 works that a jury found had been destroyed by building owner Jerry Wolkoff in violation of the Visual Artists Rights Act, part of federal copyright law.

The judge, Barrington Parker, tore into Wolkoff's argument that the law doesn't protect temporary artwork — and even used his own expert's words against him.

"We see nothing in VARA that excludes temporary artwork from attaining recognized stature," Parker wrote. "Unhelpful to this contention is the fact that Wolkoff’s own expert acknowledged that temporary artwork can achieve recognized stature."

Wolkoff's lawyer, Meir Feder, declined to comment.

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In 2002, Wolkoff enlisted the spray-paint artist Jonathan Cohen, also known as Meres One, to turn his complex of dilapidated warehouse buildings in Long Island City into an exhibition space.

Under Cohen's leadership, the 5Pointz complex turned into an internationally renowned street art mecca that attracted thousands of daily visitors and extensive media coverage. The complex served as a canvas for more than 10,000 works of art during its lifespan, according to court records.

Everything changed when Wolkoff sought approval in 2013 to demolish the complex and build luxury apartments on the site.

In an effort to stop the demolition, Cohen and a group of 5Pointz artists sued Wolkoff under the Visual Artists Rights Act, which protects artwork of "registered stature" and prohibits modifying artwork in ways that harm the artists' reputations.

That November, months before he received demolition permits, Wolkoff hired a group of workers to whitewash the artwork overnight.

A Brooklyn federal court judge and an advisory jury eventually sided with the artists and found that Wolkoff had deliberately flouted his requirement under the Visual Artists Rights Act to give the artists' 90 days notice before destroying their work.

In the 2018 decision, judge Frederic Block called the sudden whitewashing an act of "pure pique and revenge for the nerve of the plaintiffs to sue to attempt to prevent the destruction of their art."

The appeals court judge stood by that characterization, writing, "Wolkoff did not help his cause when he later reminded the district court that he 'would make the same decision today.'"

“The artists are humbled by and thankful for the ruling," the artists' lawyer, Eric Baum, said in a statement to Artnet News. "This decision ensures that future artists and their moral rights will have the protections that they and their works of art rightfully deserve.”