Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” Image by Getty Images

By PJ Grisar December 10, 2018

The National Rifle Association has removed an image of Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, “Cloud Gate” from an advertisement that, according to the Genesis Award-winning artist, “perverts everything that ‘Cloud Gate’ — and America — stands for.” The removal follows a legal battle that began this summer The Guardian reports.

The one-minute ad titled “The Clenched Fist of Truth” was released last June and features NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch accusing an unnamed enemy of using “their media to assassinate real news” and “teach children that their president is another Hitler.” Kapoor’s sculpture is included among black and white images from urban centers intercut with Loesch’s monologue.

Kapoor responded to his artwork’s unwanted cameo in March. In a statement, released jointly with Everytown for Gun Safety, Kapoor wrote that the ad “plays to the basest and most primal impulses of paranoia, conflict and violence, and uses them in an effort to create a schism to justify its most regressive attitudes.”

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At the time of the statement, Kapoor who holds the copyright for “Cloud Gate,” dismissed the possibility of pursuing legal action, saying it was “not worth the effort.”

However, this June, Kapoor filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the notoriously litigious NRA and urged people to “to stand up to the dark and aggressive forces in society.”

The Guardian reports that in a December 6 statement Kapoor revealed he had reached an out-of-court settlement and that his sculpture, which has stood since 2006 in Chicago’s Millennium Park, was being scrubbed from the video.

“They have now complied with our demand to remove the unauthorized image of my sculpture ‘Cloud Gate’ from their abhorrent video, which seeks to promote fear, hostility and division in American society,” he said.

“Their bullying and intimidation has not succeeded. This is a victory not just in defense of the copyright of my work, but it is also a declaration that we stand with those who oppose gun violence in America and elsewhere.”

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at [email protected].

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