“It is an unreasonably harsh punishment, so I have chosen to try to have it dealt with in the Højesteret,” Hedegaard tells TV2 Østjylland.
Last April, the Danish artist carried out what Hedegaard himself calls “a double modification” of Asger Jorn’s painting from 1959 and pasted a picture of himself there and signed the painting with a black felt-tip pen. But what Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard sees as a continuation in Asger Jorn’s spirit has been seen in the district court and also in the next legal instance, the district court, as gross vandalism.
The artist has been sentenced to one year in prison and the equivalent of three million Swedish kronor in damages. Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard claims that the action was aimed at creating debate about artistic property rights, as Jorn’s artwork is based on an existing landscape painting on which he then painted a duckling.