MOCA May Cancel PST Show After Gehry Bails, Saddam's Sculptor Speaks, and More

Published: May 2, 2013

– MOCA's PST Architecture Show on the Brink: Due to the departure of starchitect Frank Gehry and an installation way behind schedule, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is considering canceling "A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California," which is due to open on June 2 as part of the Getty's "Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.," according to exhibition curator Christopher Mount. "I am fearful it’s going to be canceled," Mount said, adding that if nothing else, "it’s going to have to be delayed." For his part, Gehry said that Mount, MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, and Getty officials had all begged him to take part. "I didn’t feel comfortable in it," he explained. "It didn't seem to be a scholarly, well-organized show." [LAT]

– Saddam's Sculptor Speaks Out: From the day Saddam Hussein singled out his work in a student art competition, Natiq al Alousi's career took off, and he made statues and sculptors of the Iraqi dictator, some with him brandishing a sword, others in an equestrian style atop an Arabian horse. After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, the artist's chief patron was on the run and his artworks were torn down and destroyed in streets and palaces all around the country. Al Alousi, however, has no regrets: "There was never a day, for any artist in any form of art, who was forced to work for Saddam Hussein or the country… We were all happily working, and there were competitions that anyone can participate in," he explains. "I do not regret that I once worked for Saddam Hussein… This is history. Only the best artists work for presidents." [CNN]

– Collector Sues Sotheby's for Selling Him Nazi Art: When Old Masters collector Steven Brooks bought Louis-Michel van Loo's 18th-century painting "Allegorical Portrait of a Lady as Diana Wounded by Cupid" from Sotheby's for £57,600, he didn't know that one of its previous owners was Gestapo founder Hermann Goering. When he tried to resell it through Christie's in 2010, however, the auction house uncovered the work's problematic provenance and refused to put it on the block. Now Sotheby's has also refused to sell it or refund Brooks's money, prompting his lawsuit. [TAN]

– The Met Preps New European Painting Galleries: The Metropolitan Museum's European Paintings galleries, which are due to reopen on May 23, have undergone a major revamp and expansion, with roughly one third more space permitting the hanging of an additional 150 or so works in rooms arranged thematically, chronologically, and by region. When they open the museum's holdings will be bolstered by major loans of works by van Eyck, Poussin, Rubens, Botticelli, and others. "We’ve come to the conclusion that we mount so many important shows that we are in competition only with ourselves," said the head of the museum's European Paintings department, Keith Christiansen. [Bloomberg]

– Van Gogh Museum Reopens in Amsterdam: The third major museum in Amsterdam to reopen in the past year — following the recent unveiling of the new Rijksmuseum after a 10-year makeover and the reopening of the Stedelijk Museum in late 2012 after nine years of construction — is the city's Van Gogh Museum, which emerged from a far less extensive seven-month hiatus and €21-million renovation this week. "Starting today, visitors will be able to see our new exhibition, which shows van Gogh as if you were looking over his shoulder," said the museum's director Axel Rüger. "It really shows how van Gogh trained himself, and visitors can get at the heart of his methods." [AFP]

– UC Davis Picks Art Museum Design: The University of California Davis has selected the Brooklyn-based architecture firm SO-IL — of Frieze tent fame — to design its new Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, a 33,000-square-foot, $30-million institution that will sit beneath a grand canopy covering the entire site. "I'm proud that our design competition reached beyond the usual suspects," said the museum's director Rachel Teagle. "We wanted new voices and thinking about the role and experience of art in the 21st century." [SF Chronicle]

– Performing in the Library, Quietly: As part of the PEN World Voices Festival, and in conjunction with Performance Space 122, artists Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells have created a 55-minute participatory performance art piece in NYU's Bobst Library wherein participants listened to an audio track via headphones while flipping through novels, photography books, empty pages, or conducting thought experiments. "The whole thing made you think about the nature of your sensory experience while reading, the relationship between the voice in your head and the words on the page," said Jessica Harris, a participant. [NYT]

– Late Artist Getting Evicted: The manager of a gallery in New York's Flatiron District that holds the works and art collection of the late painter Merton Simpson has grossly mismanaged the estate she was supposed to be appraising and inventorying, and now the gallery space run by the estate could be evicted, with thousands of objects and artworks worth over $5 million potentially ending up on the curb, according to the artist's son Merton Simpson, Jr. "I was surprised to find it in such a poor state, and so little business being transacted," the gallery's former director Alaina Simone, who started working there in March of 2012, said in a filing. "The guardian was managing the gallery so poorly I had to carry rare pieces of art on my lap to the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., because she said the gallery lacked the funds to wait for proper shipping." [DNAinfo]

– Swedish Galleries Boycott Art Festival Over "Arbitrary" Theme: Galleries and non-profit spaces in the Swedish city of Malmö have dropped out of the Malmö Nordic festival (running May 3-August 18) over its them, "Nordic," which they deem at best uninteresting and at worst uninteresting. "The theme is boring and risks becoming political," said Johan Berggren, owner of the eponymous gallery. Elene Tzotzi, a curator at the non-profit Signal, added: "The term Nordic has not been discussed, nor clearly defined, [and] is therefore arbitrary." [TAN]

– RIP Conceptualist Channa Horwitz: The Minimalist and Conceptual artist Channa Horwitz, who graduated from CalArts in 1972 and achieved success relatively late in her 50-year career following showcases of her work at the Hammer Museum and the New Museum — and the recently announced inclusion of her work at the 2013 Venice Biennale — passed away at her home in Los Angeles on April 29, a few weeks shy of her 81st birthday. Her intricate grid systems and complex, graph-like line drawings often evoked Op Art, though her work was much closer in spirit to Sol Lewitt. Horwitz once observed: "I experience freedom through the limitations and structure I place on my work." [Press Release]