Opinion ID: 204153
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Showing Training Ground Covered with Tarpaulins

Text: Büchel also claims that MASS MoCA improperly modified and distorted Training Ground when it partially covered it with the yellow tarpaulins and displayed it in that condition. He asserts that the record shows beyond dispute that visitors looked behind the tarps, that the tarp-adorned installation was judged by others to be Büchel's work, and that his honor and reputation were harmed by it. In response, the Museum argues that the yellow tarpaulins were merely functionala way of keeping people out of the installationrather than an aesthetic modification of the artwork that gave MASS MoCA patrons a distorted view of it. Although the tarpaulins did prevent visitors to the Museum from seeing the entire unfinished installation, the record shows that a number of people were able to form an impression of Training Ground despite the partial covering. For example, according to one observer, [the tarps] don't reach the floor, and they rise only about two feet above eye level, so they don't cover much. You can easily crouch down to slip your head underneath or peek through the slits between the vinyl sheets. Beyond the passageway formed by the tarps, the monumental elements of the installation rise all around you, plain as daythe cinderblock walls, the two-story house, the guard tower, the trailers, the carnival ride, all compacted together in a claustrophobic, politically surreal borough of hell, George Orwell by way of David Lynch. Thomas Micchelli, Christoph Büchel Training Ground for Democracy, The Brooklyn Rail (September 2007), available at http://www.brooklynrail.org/2007/09/artseen/buchel. Another critic noted that the installation under all the tarps is really kind of a conceptual peep show. It doesn't take much effort or imagination to see most of the work.... Mass MoCA is hiding an elephant behind a napkin, and called it a wink, wink, wrap show. Crap Under Wrap, supra. Photographs in the record confirm that the covers did not obscure the general path and layout of the installation. Indeed, given the location of Training Ground, visitors to Made at MASS MoCA could not avoid seeing the unfinished Training Ground bedecked in tarpaulins. Nonetheless, although the installation unquestionably looked different with the tarpaulins partially covering it, we agree with the district court that the mere covering of the artwork by the Museum, its host, cannot reasonably be deemed an intentional act of distortion or modification of Büchel's creation. To conclude otherwise would be to say that, even if all had gone well, the Museum would have been subject to a right-of-integrity claim if it had partially covered the work before its formal opening to prevent visitors from seeing it prematurely. This is not to say that MASS MoCA was necessarily acting with pure intentions when it created Made at MASS MoCA in close proximity to the tarped Training Ground. It might be a fair inference that the Museum was deliberately communicating its anger with Büchel by juxtaposing his unfinished work with the successful artistic collaborations depicted in its new exhibition. The partial covering of Training Ground may have been intended to highlight, rather than hide, the failed collaboration. [22] The right of integrity under VARA, however, protects the artist from distortions of his work, not from disparaging commentary about his behavior. In our view, a finding that the Museum's covering of the installation constituted an intentional act of distortion or modification of Büchel's artistic creation would stretch VARA beyond sensible boundaries.