Absolut Vodka Steals Design

Valentin Ruhry's untitled piece (Hello World) is made up completely of on and off switches.  Ruhry's piece gives outdated technology a breath of fresh air with his piece.  Shortly after making it's formal introduction to the world in the gallery of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the piece went viral. I'm sure Ruhry considered all of the press to be good news for him at first.  Until Pelonio heard about it. 

Pelonio is a well known design agency based in Madrid.  Apparently Pelonio saw Ruhry's piece as a lucrative business oppurtunity. Soon after becoming familiar with the work they hired artist Luis Alvarez to construct a very similar installation to be shown at Madrid Fashion Week (pictured below).

Inevitably, Ruhry is designating the installation which was an advertisement for Absolut Vodka a rip-off.  But did LITE-BRITE call Ruhry out for copyright infringement?  Regardless, there is not much Ruhry can do about it.  Art Fag City exchanged emails with Ruhry:

Over email, Ruhry told me his lawyer was not encouraging about how a lawsuit would fare in court. He had been told “it would be a very difficult case, due to the different rights situation in Austria/Spain.”

All that the artist received from his attempt to sue Pelonio was a bill, and after trying to contact Pelonio and Absolut he was ignored  However, he is trying to plead his case on social media sites by gaining public support.  All in all, this is not necessarily only bad news for Ruhry, considering that he gets more attention from the public.  The best way to show your support of the artist is probably to check out his other work!