Cite as 635 F.3d 290 (7th Cir. 2011)
Alexander L. Karan, Micah E. Marcus (argued), Attorneys, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Annette M. McGarry (argued), Attorney, McGarry & McGarry, Jeanne G. Toft, Attorney, Chicago Park District Law Department, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before MANION, SYKES and TINDER, Circuit Judges.
SYKES, Circuit Judge.
Chapman Kelley is a nationally recognized artist known for his representational paintings of landscapes and flowers—in particular, romantic floral and woodland interpretations set within ellipses. In 1984 he received permission from the Chicago Park District to install an ambitious wildflower display at the north end of Grant Park, a prominent public space in the heart of downtown Chicago. “Wildflower Works” was thereafter planted: two enormous elliptical flower beds, each nearly as big as a football field, featuring a variety of native wildflowers and edged with borders of gravel and steel.
Promoted as “living art,” Wildflower Works received critical and popular acclaim, and for a while Kelley and a group of volunteers tended the vast garden, pruning and replanting as needed. But by 2004 Wildflower Works had deteriorated, and the City’s goals for Grant Park had changed. So the Park District dramatically modified the garden, substantially reducing its size, reconfiguring the oval flower beds into rectangles, and changing some of the planting material.
Kelley sued the Park District for violating his “right of integrity” under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (“VARA”), 17 U.S.C. § 106A, and also for breach of contract. The contract claim is insubstantial; the main event here is the VARA claim, which is novel and tests the boundaries of copyright law. Congress enacted this statute to comply with the nation’s obligations under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. VARA amended the Copyright Act, importing a limited version of the civil-law concept of the “moral rights of the artist” into our intellectual-property law. In brief, for certain types of visual art—paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and exhibition photographs—VARA confers upon the artist certain rights of attribution and integrity. The latter include the right of the artist to prevent, during his lifetime,
