The historic organisation commissioned unique holograph artwork from light artist Chris Levine in 2003 to celebrate 800 years since Jersey pledged allegiance to the Crown in 1204.
Equanimity and Lightness of Being, along with “derivative versions” of the holographic images, are now the subject of a legal case which Jersey Heritage kickstarted earlier this year.
Express has seen official court documents in which the charity claims that Mr Levine and his company, Sphere 9, owes them hundreds of thousands of pounds, after he allegedly breached the terms of a 2015 settlement agreement and sold unlicensed copies of the portraits to the total of “multiple millions”.
Mr Levine – whose other commissions have included the laser show for Kate Moss’s 40th birthday party, work with The Eden Project, and has five creations in the National Portrait Gallery – has filed a counterclaim in which he argues, among other legal points, that the works were completed over two sittings at Buckingham Palace, in November 2003 and March 2004.
The first, he said, was funded by Jersey Heritage – but the second, from which most of the works and Lightness of Being derives, were self-funded.
Writing on his Instagram about Lightness of Being this month, an impassioned Mr Levine said: “The copyright was assigned to me when I created this work and that really pisses some people off. But not those who really matter. Including the Queen told me personally at Windsor that she was delighted the portraits were being seen everywhere during her Jubilee. I’ll always be grateful to have really connected with her, and the art came to be.”
In his counterclaim, he terms the lawsuit “pointless” and “wasteful”.
The works: not so equanimous about Equanimity
Pictured: Equanimity is exhibited in the Jersey Heritage site, Mont Orgueil (Matt Hotton).
Islanders who have visited Gorey Castle – also known as Mont Orgueil Castle – may be familiar with what the National Portrait Gallery has termed the “defining image of Queen Elizabeth’s reign” that hangs on its walls, entitled Equanimity (it means calmness and composure).
It was created by Chris Levine and holographer Rob Munday over two sittings in Buckingham Palace, during which a high-resolution digital camera moved on a tracker to shoot over 10,000 images.
His fee for the “creation and delivery” of Equanimity was £147,000, according to court documents.
The three-dimensional portrait marking 800 years of the Island’s allegiance to the Crown was also used for a £100 Jersey bank note in 2012 to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
And in 2011, the people of Jersey presented another version of Equanimity to the National Portrait Gallery.
But with more than 8,000 images unused from the two sittings at Buckingham Palace, Mr Levine started to experiment with cuttings, and in late 2007, he produced Lightness of Being, which was first published in Walrus magazine in December 2007.
Jersey Heritage: the claimant
Pictured: Jersey Heritage runs several sites on the Island, including Elizabeth Castle and Mont Orgueil.
In March, Jersey Heritage Trust filed its claim that Mr Levine has made “significant profits in the multiple millions from the exploitation of the works” and owed them a significant sum in November 2022.
The documents show that Jersey Heritage believe Mr Levine has sold or “otherwise exploited” 223 copies of Lightness of Being since November 2017, generating millions in the process, and at least 66 copies of Equanimity since 2017 “without seeking, or receiving, the prior written permission”, with profits of more than £585,000.
The charity, which receives a significant portion of its funding from the Jersey Government, also claim that Mr Levine has breached a settlement agreement from 2015 and is suing for alleged copyright infringement.
The written contract of 6 October 2015 was a “full and final settlement of their disputes at the time regarding Equanimity and the Lightness of Being“.
In it, Mr Levine agreed to pay a settlement sum of £300,000 in increments before 6 October 2022.
He paid £50,000 sums in November 2015, March 2016, October 2016, and £25,000 sums in October 2017 and November 2018, adding up to a total of £200,000, but £100,000 of this sum is outstanding, which Mr Levine admits.
In court documents, Mr Levine has stated that he cannot pay the sum due to his “impecuniosity” and “outstanding debts to HMRC”. Jersey Heritage, however, claims that “his own statements and publicly availably records demonstrate that he has earned very significant sums from exploiting” the portraits.
In the agreement, he also assigned the copyright of the works to Jersey Heritage, and they remain the copyright holders. Once the settlement sum is paid, he would have the copyright.
While the sum was outstanding, however, Mr Levine had to pay royalties of 20% on all net income derived from the two portraits.
Claiming that the portraits generated more than £3.7 million – and more than £1.2 million in 2022 alone – Jersey Heritage is therefore arguing that Mr Levine owed at least £650,000 as of 10 November 2022.
The documents state that he has paid Jersey Heritage a total of £107,165, most recently in February 2018, which they allege does not even scratch the surface of what he rightfully owes them.
Therefore, their claim also extends to copyright infringement and “alleged unlicensed exploitations”.
“The scope of those alleged unlicensed exploitations is unknown,” the documents said. “The Claimant is not presently able to fully estimate the financial value of this claim, but considers that it will be substantial,” they added.
The charity said Mr Levine was fully aware of his “flagrant” infringement of the copyright and “deprived them of significant sums”.
Mr Levine and Jersey Heritage also had to provide each other with “annual audited written statements” of the net sales price of any works sold or otherwise exploited, which the charity claimed Mr Levine had not done in full.
The artist: Chris Levine
Pictured: Mr Levine photographed several years ago. (Matt Hotton)
Canadian-born ‘light artist’ Mr Levine denies allegations of copyright infringement, and he describes the lawsuit in a counterclaim filed on 29 May as “pointless and wasteful”.
He has disputed the scope of the works that Jersey Heritage has rights over, saying the organisation knew of his “ongoing” creation and exhibition of versions of the portraits.
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He has claimed in official documents that the works were completed over two sittings at Buckingham Palace in November 2003 and March 2004. The first, he said, was funded by Jersey Heritage.
But at that first sitting, Her Late Majesty reportedly offered Mr Levine a second sitting and he “was keen to take up the opportunity as he thought he could improve the material”. Jersey Heritage “refused to fund the second sitting”, and Mr Levine had to borrow around £50,000 to enable it to go ahead, the documents said.
An agreement of February 2004, he claimed, awarded him copyright to all works arising from the sitting.
In a 2022 interview with Wallpaper magazine, he described how he later came across the “outtake” in 2007 which made up Lightness of Being, saying: “I immediately put a filter on it and the piece was made. It’s as if I channelled it.”
“This artwork was created by Mr Levine on his own initiative and formed no part of the original commission by the Claimant”, the documents said.
Despite acknowledging that he does owe Jersey Heritage some money, he claims there is “no proper basis” for advancing the copyright infringement claim because he has provided Jersey Heritage, last March, with a “detailed schedule of sales made in respect of which the claimant is entitled to a royalty”, among other legal particulars.
He even goes so far as to say that it is “disproportionate” to sue him for copyright.
Another claim
In his counterclaim, Mr Levine is also arguing, going by the conditions of the 2015 settlement agreement, that he is entitled to 80% of entrance fees to The Queen exhibition in Gorey Castle.
This is because, he said, he helped to put together the exhibition of 12 works in 2011 and 2012 for a “token fee” of £1,500 which led him to believe he would own those works once the exhibition closed. The exhibition has remained opened since 2012.
He is now smacking Jersey Heritage with the accusation that they have exploited his works, saying that they failed to pay him for the use of the exhibition works and he is entitled to 80% of net profits from that exhibition.
“Mr Levine has suffered, and will continue to suffer loss and damage,” the documents said.
Jersey Heritage, in their reply and defence to that counterclaim, said the exhibition “was part of a charitable endeavour” and he is not entitled to its profits, 80% or otherwise.
“Mr Levine does not, and never has, owned the physical Mont Orgueil Works,” it said, as the charity paid for their production and other costs associated with the exhibition. The settlement agreement also does not apply to the castle works, it added.
And, of course, there would be the difficulty of separating out profits from entrance to The Queen and general entrance to the castle, which would be “a very small proportion of the overall ticket price”, Jersey Heritage said.
What happens next?
Most recently, on 10 July, Mr Levine responded to Jersey Heritage’s reply to his counterclaim.
It shows that Mr Levine is not backing down and continues to demand a portion of the entrance fee.
According to a comment from Mr Levine to The Art Newspaper, a date for mediation – a chance to discuss and work together to solve the dispute without going to court – has now been set.
Jersey Heritage declined to comment on the case when contacted by Express.