It might have seemed too good to be true when Heritage Auctions touted its sale of the contents of the studio of Los Angeles street artist RETNA earlier this month, with numerous works by the artist as well as by other artists being offered without reserve, some bearing estimates of $0.
Well, it may have in fact been too good to be true. The artist filed a lawsuit against Heritage on Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, alleging that his landlord, Victor Ceporius, who is also named in the suit, improperly seized the materials from the artist, whose given name is Marquis Lewis. Also named are Marianne Miller-Ceporius and Irene Ceporius.
The suit alleges that Lewis remains the rightful owner of the studio’s contents, which it values at several million dollars.
“Fighting against this alleged unlawful and disgraceful auction has been a herculean effort across a team of attorneys, artists, galleries, and friends,” said intellectual property lawyer Jeff Gluck in an emailed statement, counting himself among them. “Heritage has a lot of explaining to do and this is only the beginning.” The suit was filed by Blakely Law Group of California and New York.
Ceporius’s attorney, Tammy M.J. Hong, did not respond to emails and phone messages requesting comment. Heritage also did not respond to requests for comment.
RETNA, Streamlines (2013). Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
The suit lays out RETNA’s status, pointing out that his work has shown at institutions like the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and at galleries worldwide, has appeared in ad campaigns by fashion giants like Louis Vuitton and Nike, and on the cover of none other than Justin Bieber’s 2015 album Purpose. His auction record stands at $175,000, set at Heritage, as it happens, in 2020.
Lewis rented studio spaces at 800 and 810 Santa Fe Avenue from Ceporius starting in 2012, for about $53,000 a month between them, says the suit. Tons of Lewis’s work, as well as work by other artists, was kept there. Lewis failed to pay rent in December 2023 and January 2024. The landlord posted three-day notices to pay or quit in late January, demanding $113,200 in back rent and fees. Lewis paid some $85,000 in February and March 2024, says the suit, after being led to believe that would satisfy the debt.
All the same, according to the suit, starting in May, the landlord repeatedly denied Lewis access to the studio or its contents, even though he informed the artist that he could reclaim what the landlord called abandoned property, and that if he did not, the landlord could sell it under the law. Lewis maintains that the property was never abandoned. The landlords, however, won a judgement against Lewis in court in September 2024.
RETNA, untitled, undated. Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
The suit alleges that associates of Lewis tried to intervene on his behalf, but were rebuffed.
Lewis’s dealer, Avery Andon, says the suit, spoke with the landlord’s sister, Irene Ceporius, who indicated in July that Lewis owed some $300,000 in back rent. Andon offered to pay, but Ceporius never sent payment instructions. Andon’s client Laurence Fischman offered to pay the debt on September 11; Ceporius cited a figure of $400,000, and Fischman asked for payment instructions, which were not forthcoming. But the next day, when Andon followed up to again request payment information, Ceporius said the landlord had arranged for a public sale of the studio contents.
Heritage’s sale is scheduled to begin on Thursday, January 30. The complaint calls it “a scheme to steal RETNA’s valuable property and sell it at auction for amounts well beyond what RETNA purportedly owed for rent on the studio,” saying Ceporius never intended to resolve the dispute, falsely inflated the debt, and refused to allow anyone to pay it, all so that, with Heritage’s assistance, the landlords “could realize ill-gotten gains from their blatant art theft.”
“If it were possible to make matters worse,” says the complaint, “Heritage is advertising much of the stolen RETNA Property as authentic and complete artworks of RETNA, when many of the pieces are studio detritus or works created by other artists.”
The complaint illustrates three lots that are not complete works but rather “doodles, samples, never meant to be original works of art created by RETNA and/or never meant for public sale.” Moreover, says the complaint, lots are listed as being by RETNA that are actually by artists Melda Erman, Marina Darsalia, or Griff Cowan.
Anyone who buys any of the allegedly stolen property, the complaint warns, will be added as a defendant.
