Kim Kardashian Sued By Judd Foundation For Claiming To Own Minimalist Artist’s Furniture
“We don’t want to be mixed up with Kim Kardashian.”
Kim Kardashian is in legal hot water after saying she owned rare luxury office furniture made by minimalist artist Donald Judd in a video hyping one of her businesses.
The Judd Foundation is suing Kardashian over the 2022 YouTube video in which she says, “These Donald Judd tables are really amazing.” But according to a lawsuit filed this week, the tables in question were actually built by a company named Clements Design, not Judd, who died in 1994.
In a now-deleted YouTube video tour of her Skkn by Kim offices, Kardashian swans around a sleek wooden table and chairs that “very much resemble Judd’s La Mansana Table 22 and Chair 84,” according to Curbed.
“If you guys are furniture people, because I’ve really gotten into furniture lately,” Kardashian says in the clip. “These Donald Judd tables are really amazing and totally blend in with the seats.”
The suit states that her statements in the video damaged the Donald Judd brand. “Consumers who watched the video or read the media coverage were misled to believe Ms. Kardashian’s tables and chairs were authentic Donald Judd pieces.” After the foundation’s attempts to resolve the matter without litigation were met with what it claims were “delays and excuses from Ms. Kardashian and Clements Design,” it sued.
The foundation prohibits customers from using the designer’s furniture for “marketing and promotional purposes.” This isn’t the first time the Judd Foundation has sued to protect the artist’s legacy—in 2022, it sued two art galleries for leaving permanent oily fingerprints on one of his sculptures. Judd himself was also quite specific about how and with whom he worked.
Curbed
The Judd Foundation’s suit also accuses Clements Design of trademark and copyright infringement, spurring Clements to release a statement to the New York Times noting “obvious key differences” in the dueling brands’ furniture. However, the Judd Foundation reportedly obtained a Clements Design invoice that describes it as “in the style of Donald Judd.”
According to the suit, the Judd Foundation contacted Kardashian’s team right after the video was posted, and her spokesperson apologized and offered to update the video’s caption with a retraction about where the furniture actually came from. But the Judd Foundation wanted the offending video deleted and the Clements Design furniture destroyed to avoid further confusion.
“We don’t want to be mixed up with Kim Kardashian. We respect what she does,” a lawyer for the Judd Foundation told the New York Times. “But we don’t want to be involved with this.”
While Kardashian’s lawyers and the Judd Foundation hash out the legal imbroglio, the reality TV-star-turned fashion entrepreneur can always keep churning out splashy SKIMS collabs with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Cardi B, and Carmen Electra and Jenny McCarthy.