Artist RETNA Claims an Auction House Sold His Stolen Work

RETNA. Photo: zerojack/Star Max/GC Images Today, a Dallas-based auction house sold off what it called the “intimate” contents of the Los Angeles studio of RETNA, a graffiti artist whose hieroglyphic-like calligraphy has, over the course of three decades, appeared on streets, museum walls, the façade of a Louis Vuitton store, and the cover of a Justin Bieber album. The pitch from Heritage Auctions was awkward: “If you’ve ever visited an established artist’s longtime studio, you have essentially taken a walk through the artist’s brain. Maybe his very soul.” The materials for sale, the auctioneers note, “came to Heritage via a legal process.” At the bottom of the online auction page was a clarifying note: The sale was “conducted as an abandoned property sale in accordance with California Civil Code §§1980O.” Yesterday, in the run-up to the auction, RETNA, whose real name is Marquis Lewis, filed a lawsuit claiming the art now in the possession of Heritage was not, in fact, abandoned but was instead stolen. According to the complaint, his former landlord illegally seized the studio’s contents, worth millions of dollars, after a five-month dispute over rent, which ultimately led to the artist’s eviction. “They have my hard drives,” RETNA...