The Financiers Who Say They Own ‘Fearless Girl’ Have Taken Their Legal Battle With Her Creator Halfway Around the World, to Australia

Fearless Girl, the bronze sculpture whose feminist
message first appeared in Manhattan, has spread all over the
world.

And for the financiers behind its original appearance, that’s a
problem.

Lawyers for Kristen
Visbal, the Delaware-based artist, are up against State Street
Global Advisors, who say they own the sculpture’s image and name.
The opposing teams most recently appeared in a courtroom in
Melbourne, Australia to plead their cases. State Street has brought
a case against Visbal and Melbourne personal injury firm Maurice
Blackburn, which commissioned a copy of Fearless Girl and
placed it in that city’s Federation Square.

Maurice Blackburn “used the campaign to promote itself or
themselves by tying the name of Fearless Girl to
themselves,” said David Studdy, a lawyer for State Street, in court
on Monday, reports the New York Times. Blackburn says that
State Street is retroactively trying to assert rights it does not
own.

The legal conflict has raged since February, when State Street filed a
lawsuit against Visbal for selling versions of Fearless Girl
to a real estate investor in Oslo, who installed the work in front
of that city’s Grand Hotel, which he owns, as well as to Maurice
Blackburn, which specializes in personal injury, class actions, and
financial services. The company has also cited a copy Visbal
brought with her to a women’s march in Los Angeles.

State Street, headquartered in Boston, asserts that it has
control over the sculpture, stating that the firm “conceived and
launched” the project. Visbal, for her part, says that she herself
conceived the sculpture in order to “celebrate women,” and that she
created it on a shoestring.

The sculpture first appeared in 2017, facing the Charging
Bull that has stood for decades at Bowling Green, in New York.
A plaque appeared with Fearless Girl, saying she called for
greater representation of women on Wall Street.

Lawyers for either side could not immediately be reached for
comment.

A GoFundMe campaign to cover Visbal’s legal fees has
reached $7,520 of its $500,000 goal. “State Street has blocked the
use of the Fearless Girl image and name on behalf of women
for nearly two and a half years,” says Visbal in a video. “This
company, who wholly represented themselves as being pro-diverse,
has blocked and manipulated the very artist who created the work—a
woman!”

Formerly in sales and hotel marketing, Visbal studied art in
Maryland and then apprenticed at the Johnson Atelier Art Foundry in
New Jersey. She has worked at a vineyard in Delaware since 1998.
Her bronze sculptures of animals, athletes, and children, as well
as abstract works, have appeared throughout the country.

The post The Financiers Who Say They Own ‘Fearless Girl’
Have Taken Their Legal Battle With Her Creator Halfway Around the
World, to Australia appeared first on artnet News.