Whipped Cream Difficulties

Jeremy Larner is the “business manager” for someone named Rob Dyrdek; as I understand it, Mr. Dyrdek is a skateboarder who has a show on MTV.

Point is, Mr. Larner is apparently fairly well-to-do, and describes himself as an “art geek”. Mr. Larner has several works by Shepard Fairey in his collection.

About 15 months ago, Mr. Larner won an auction for the right to sponsor a Fairey mural in the children’s wing at L.A. County-USC Medical Center, paying $30,000 for the privilege.

Mr. Larner is unhappy with the outcome and the way he was treated, and is suing for his money back.

I could snark on Mr. Fairey, or on the wisdom of paying $30,000 for his work, but it actually sounds like Mr. Larner has some legitimate gripes.

In a timeline in his lawsuit, Larner contended that he repeatedly reached out to the charity for updates on the mural but received no firm information for months. He said that after numerous queries to project manager Eli Consilvio, he received a prank phone call in November from a mutual friend and fellow art collector.

Part of Mr. Larner’s sponsorship included watching Mr. Fairey paint the mural. Unfortunately, Mr. Larner was “on vacation and unable to attend” when the mural was painted. It isn’t clear to me if this was a big deal to Mr. Larner. But:

As the months wore on, Larner grew frustrated that no dedication ceremony had occurred. [Project manager Eli] Consilvio said he told Larner that the administrative issues with the hospital were causing the delays and thought Larner understood. Larner filed a fraud and breach-of-contract suit in L.A. County Superior Court on June 25, detailing the delays and the prank call.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2012 at 7:43 am and is filed under Art, California Über Alles, Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.