VAT cut as court rules that video and light art is sculpture

The UK’s VAT and Duties Tribunal recently ruled that works by electric-light installation artist Dan Flavin and video artist Bill Viola are not subject to the same customs duties as ordinary “image projectors [or] photographic enlargers and reducers” or “chandeliers and electrical ceiling or wall light fittings.”

It’s a good ruling. The article points out the American precedent: in 1928 a US court ruled that Brancusi’s Bird in Space was not actually a kitchen utensil.