<div>This is a Legal Fund for Chaédria LaBouvier. It is meant to create infrastructure and resources for on-going support in on-going process of navigating copyright infringement and other attendant/adjacent legal remedies. The immediate goal is $30K that will cover retainer(s), adjacent legal expenses and time/space to organize documents for lawyers. I am in touch with a few lawyers, but I have not retained counsel. If you are an IP lawyer and/or a lawyer w/expertise w/the outline below,<a href="https://forms.gle/7aV7kcCPxqjAhtVX7" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">please be in touch here</a> . For those that prefer to give directly, my PayPal is @chaedria and Venmo is @lalaboux. Thank you in advance!
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_1774984616804766_r.jpeg" width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_1774984677212773_r.png" width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div>
<div>What follows are two stories. The most immediate is a story about the continued copyright infringement of my book <em>Basquiat's Defacement: The Untold Story</em>, institutional bullying and malpractice of Vox Media, Celadon as they protect Elon Green's theft of my work. Between the derivative book and podcast, both named "The Man Nobody Killed". Green plagiarizes my work roughly 35 times and counting. Other authors have not been factored into this count. Vox has been made aware of this since July 2025, and in ignoring notices and warnings, has chosen a path that protect profits and Green's plagiarism, and inherently lies to the public.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_1774984852402932_r.jpeg" width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>The second is how the Guggenheim Museum created the conditions to allow that to not only happen, but flourish across industries w/the ultimate effect of misrepresenting my work, its ownership and hiding a seismic chapter of art history from the public. Privately and publicly I have lived with, since 2019, threats, smear campaigns and other harassments and violences that are unsustainable. This also follows a pattern of harassment, smearing and threats that witnesses that saw and know what happened at the Guggenheim experienced as well and were intimidated into silence. Vox benefits from this enterprise and network of harm.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Below is in image of my car, where a catalytic converter should be after it was ripped out in 2022 before the publishing of a smear campaign in The Atlantic.
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_1774977019492716_r." width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>The Beginning</strong>
</div>
<div>In 2019, I curated Basquiat’s Defacement: The Untold Story and the catalogue that went with it. The exhibition and the catalogue have influenced and changed the art world, politically and technically. It created space for Amy Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor and an <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/museum-open-letters-activism-1894150" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">entire industry found a voice to speak up against </a>their institutions because <a href="https://artillerymag.com/chaedria-labouvier/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">I went first</a>. But before that, my work sought to make and prove a bold claim: that this small painting should change how we look and understand the work of Basquiat and his 80s peers, and how Defacement’s aftermath influenced art activism. And it could be done by centering the voice of Michael Stewart, the subject of <em>Defacement</em>, integrating ethics and art history.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_177497927239088_r." width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Through plagiarism and its platforming, Vox Media, Celadon and Elon Green continue to extend and enrich themselves from not only an enterprise of harm, but a historical pattern wherein Black people, particularly women, are robbed of their work, its economic benefit, authority and stewardship. And this economic theft is happening in the backdrop of <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/black-women-suffered-large-employment-losses-in-2025-particularly-among-college-graduates-and-public-sector-workers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the historic unemployment of Black women</a> . Work that should be supporting my livelihood because I've worked for it and I own it was stolen by not just a White man with the backing of an institution, but one that has a fraction of my expertise, training and skill. Otherwise, Elon Green would've created his own work. <strong>There is no world in which my work and my family -- who helped to fund my independent research -- should be subsidizing him, Vox, Celadon or any other institution.</strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_1774976877137761_r." width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div><img alt="" media_type="3" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/100208761_1774976933265664_r." width="100%" />
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Vox's legal team said that they consider the matter "resolved." You can find more examples and context here, <a href="https://curatingbasquiat.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">on my Substack</a>.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div class="youtube-replace"><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>What you are listening to is Nancy Spector, then Chief Curator of the Guggenheim in January 2020, admitting on tape to arranging a contract that the museum had no intention of paying. </strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Vox is the continuation of an enterprise meant to economically deprive me of the benefit of my work. </strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>I do not want your pity, because that's too easy. <strong>What I want is for you to help me</strong>.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Why/Where The 1st Part Money Goes</strong>
</div>
<div>The money raised from the Legal Fund will go towards securing a retainer for a lawyer or multiple lawyers, as well as expenses related to sustaining this process.
</div>
<div>$4500 – retainer fees to advance an adjacent legal issue
</div>
<div>$5000 -- re-payment for a retainer fee (adjacent legal issue)
</div>
<div>$10,000-$15,000 – these are the estimates that I’ve gotten about IP lawyers retainers. It may very well be more than this.
</div>
<div>$700 -- $1K –filing and mailing costs for additional paperwork and notices
</div>
<div>$5K -- an emergency buffer (see below)
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>The amount of time that this will take is tremendous. This story has already absorbed hundreds of thousands of dollars of money, time, resources. <strong>Fundraised amounts will go towards sustaining myself through the process of it, </strong>b/c it will/has affected my ability to work; the theft of my work and its economic benefit also harms my ability to support myself and defend my work, creating a vicious cycle. <strong>My work that should be funding <em>me</em> is funding other people, making it more difficult to fight to begin with.</strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Anything past $30K will be</strong> <strong>will be spent on prioritizing the legal process, expenses with thiswith updates here and on my Substack</strong>.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>In supporting this Legal Fund, I am asking you to remember that I am a human being, and that I deserve to be protected, and stand in full authority, authorship and benefit of the work that I have created.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><br />
</div>

Courtney Baker

Tiffani Bell

Geoffrey Thrope

Anonymous

dina podolsky

Erick Khafre

A Rivera

Jasmine DeJackome

Stephanie Colombo

Stephen Paige

Jean Lau

Laurel Kean

Support Legal Fund Against Copyright Infringement & Fraud

Support Legal Fund Against Copyright Infringement & Fraud

Still $13,926 to go. Help us build momentum.