Rio de Janeiro
Judge Mario Chiuvite Júnior of the 22nd Civil Court of the TJSP (Court of Justice of São Paulo) ordered that the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo execute a search and seizure warrant for books relating to the exhibition “Pagã” by Regina Parra. which was visible between April and August this year.
The work features two pages of photos of the author of the campaign, Andrea Sahyoun, in which she appears topless, in images shared by friends on their social networks. They were first used by the artist in the exhibition without her permission and then reproduced in the edition.
“In the plaintiff’s opinion, there is no doubt that it was her image, taken from a photograph taken during her vacation, privately, in a moment of leisure and relaxation,” writes the judge, giving the communication sent in May.
Documents from the trial to which F5 had access say that this notification came on the 16th of this month during the exhibition, when Sahyoun learned that her halfnaked photo had been turned into a work of art by Parra.
The image was covered with black paint after the notification, confirming the lack of permission. Nevertheless, works with the author’s image continued to be sold in the art gallery’s books.
According to a report published in Folha, the exhibition would propose to paint “the erotic pleasure of women” in a work based on the book “A Paixão Segundo GH” by Clarice Lispector and also on Greek mythology.
The photo, “on a large scale,” according to the judge’s text, “was therefore taken without the intention of being broadcast publicly, let alone for use for commercial/advertising purposes, and the defendants never obtained permission from the author to reproduce it. “Content in an artistic or journalistic work”.
Sahyoun’s portrait, taken from the Internet without her consent and shown in the Parra exhibition even though she was excluded from the exhibition, was published in the book about the exhibition, where it still appears today. In the decision, the judge orders the urgent collection of the published books offered for sale at the Pinacoteca and issues a search and seizure warrant to be executed by a court officer.
The decision also stipulates that the Pinacoteca communicates the circulation and the number of copies already sold within 48 hours, based on its knowledge, under penalty of a fine of R$ 1,000 per day of noncompliance, limited to R$ 40,000.