How can I protect my work now that a former friend plagiarize it (professional context)
I started showing my work in galleries and institutions one year ago and began to have exposure, and a friend started a few months months after to show work very close to mine.
For context, I was talking about art, showing my references, sharing residency programs and art I was producing every other days or so, while I never saw what they were working on. When I met them, they were known to be mostly working on another medium than mine and they were actively hiding their work from other people.
Then I turned full time artist and won a prestigious emerging prize in my homecountry, and this former friend came up three to four months after with this work that looks really like mine.
When i talk about closeness, I am not just talking aesthetically (how it looks) but also in the gesture, as I am using a certain vocabulary of forms, different materials and shapes/scales I took time to come up with in a way that make sense, and is actually making my work dinstinguishable from others artists I love.
The first time I saw my former friend's new works, I didn't say anything but I kept photos. The second time, they had a group show a month after they came to my solo show, and the copy was obvious.
I talked about it with them in the most diplomatic way I could because I didn't want to ruin our friendship. They told me that even if it looked the same, it was, in fact, very different.
Then they showed me for the first time in our friendship past works from several years ago, with close and not so close links to what they did at the time. My problem tho is that they never talked about it before, despite us (me) talking about work all the time since we met.
I believed they were genuine, yet I told them I stayed surprised about the timing of their kumbaya moment just after me showing my work in some institutions.
They stopped talking to me and a few months in deleted me from their socials. Their account is private so I can't see things. A few days ago, a friend sent me photos from a last show the former friend did, where the plagiarism is now complete and not smoothed out anymore (materials, elements, dispositions, technique).
I've been talking to a few people around me, some curator I've been working with and all. The high way would be to say nothing at all, but I want to make sure my work is protected because this person is either in denial or a little bit predatory. I'm still an emerging artist and barely making a living. Hopefully I have been documenting the transformation of their work, with dates and all.
I know it's not about taking legal actions, but about how to protect me in the future if they keep copying. And if I should address it to them, documentation in hand, and make them know I'm treating it seriously and openly.