Haunch Of Venison And Partner V HM Revenue And Customs

1406 Words3 Pages

Visual arts have, over time, extended from their traditional forms of drawing, painting, sculpture and printing to include more improved forms such as installations and interactive works. The new techniques and methods being embraced by the visual arts field have enabled it to spread to even larger environments such as the media. The extension of art works has caused a considerable conflict concerning the definition of an artwork. Due to this reason, it has been difficult for the judiciary to decide on how to execute the protection of copyrights and the susceptibility of artwork to other additional benefits such as tax exemption or reduction. Viewing it from a general perspective, art can be considered as a multidisciplinary comprising of a …show more content…

The case involved leading contemporary artists, Dan Flavin and Bill Viola against the VAT and Duties Tribunal in England . Haunch of Venison imported Viola’s contemporary artwork from the US into the UK. On arrival, the light installations were subjected to custom charges as the HM Revenue and Customs refused to classify it as a sculpture and instead categorized it as “electrical devices” and specifically under lamp and light fittings. Hence, the sculpture would be subjected to custom duty fee. The case proceeded to court where the HMRC argued that the light installations were not artworks when disassembled to the various electrical constituent parts. The HMRC also argued that since Viola’s work was only limited to digital data, it lacked the three dimensional qualities which qualify a work of art as a sculpture. The witnesses for Haunch of Venison, who included a number of artists gave clear evidence in support of the gallery. Viola demonstrated how he managed to customize digital video apparatus to maximize the artistic impression of his fitting. He also demonstrated how he installed his video installations to give them a three-dimensional quality . The court came to an agreement that sculpture and what should constitute a sculpture has increasingly expanded throughout the 20th and 21st century. It came up with a decision that sculpture …show more content…

For this case, the Gagosian Gallery in New York representing renowned American artists is planning to sell one of his prominent works. The company representing him decided to ship it for an exhibit in Artland. The artwork was shipped in its assembled state and insured the art for the value of $15, 000,000. An agent from the custom authority, however, removed the sculpture from the category of artworks and placed it under the household appliances categories. In this case, the sculpture attracted $3,000,000 VAT, which is equivalent to 15% charged for household appliances. In addition, the sculpture attracted a larger taxation since its assessment value was based on its importer’s declared value which was $15,

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