Peter Doig's Parole Officer Sues, Nahmad Scandal Scares Off Lenders, and More

Published: May 3, 2013

– Peter Doig Sued by His Parole Officer: Robert Fletcher is suing the Scottish artist Peter Doig for allegedly refusing to recognize as his own a painting that Fletcher claims he bought from the artist for $100 in 1976. At the time, Fletcher says, Doig was fresh out of a Canadian correctional facility — where he was sent for five months for possession of LSD — and Fletcher served as his parole officer. "Fletcher also encouraged Doig to pursue his artistic talent, and accepted Doig's offer to sell the work to Fletcher for $100," a court complaint explains. "Since that day in or about 1976 and to the present, Fletcher has owned the work." Fletcher added: "Doig has strong motives to deny having painted the work due to the background and place in which it was painted." [Courthouse News]

– Nahmad Nixes "Monet Richter" Show: Following its raid by the FBI in connection to an international gambling and money laundering operation with mob ties, the Upper East Side's Helly Nahmad Gallery has postponed its upcoming exhibition "Monet Richter," which was due to open next week to coincide with the Impressionist, modern, and contemporary art auctions in New York. The exhibition was to include GerhardRichter works from the HirshhornMuseum, the Albertina, and the Frieder Burda Museum, all of which have pulled out. "I can’t imagine a museum would be prepared to lend to a gallery that’s not in good standing," Dallas Art Museum director Maxwell Anderson said, "and the indictment of the owner would qualify as not being in good standing." [Bloomberg]

– Sotheby's Plans London Gallery: The auction house has signed a lease for a space in a five-story building on George Street facing the rear entrance to its New Bond Street headquarters, where it will open a gallery in which to conduct private sales, an increasingly significant portion of its business. "It’s very smart. I would do the same," New York dealer Christophe van de Weghe said. "Sotheby’s will have the same clientele for both their auctions and their gallery sales." [Bloomberg]

– Venetians Tell Charles Ray to Vamoose: "Boy With Frog," the eight-foot-tall Charles Ray sculpture of a nude boy holding up a frog that was unveiled by French collector François Pinault at the 2009 Venice Biennale, will be removed by the city next week and replaced with a replica of a 19th century streetlight that used to occupy the spot and had become a popular romantic meeting place. "I knew things were getting serious when a friend of mine sent me a petition to keep ‘Boy With Frog,’" said Ray. "I never saw it as temporary. I worked so hard at the scale of the sculpture so that it would be embedded in the city. I had hoped ‘The Boy’ would eventually become a citizen of Venice." [NYT]

– Newark Nets Nigerian Art Collection: Doctor Simon Ottenberg, a leading scholar and collector of contemporary Nigerian art who is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Washington has donated 145 works from his personal collection to the Newark Museum, where they will be showcased in the new exhibition "The Art of Translation: The Simon Ottenberg Gift of Modern and Contemporary Nigerian Art," which opens May 15. "I chose the Newark Museum since it is a first-rate institution of long standing, has an energetic and innovative curator of African art, and is a place where my modern and contemporary art works help strengthen an important section of the collection," Ottenberg said. [Newsday]

– MoMA Offering Free Admission in May: In celebration of its new seven-day schedule the Museum of Modern Art will let its first 100 visitors in for free on every Tuesday (the day that it used to be closed) in May. Visitors looking to dodge the institution's $25 admission fee will likely need to turn up quite early on May 7, 14, 21, and 28 to take advantage of the month-long promotion. [LATimes]

– Thomas Hirschhorn Heads to the Bronx: For the latest installment in his "Monument" series — whose previous honorees have been Spinoza, Deleuze, and Bataille— and with a little help from the Dia Art Foundation, Thomas Hirschhorn will install "The Gramsci Monument" at the Forest Houses, a housing project in the Bronx's Morrisania neighborhood. Residents of the projects will be paid to build the humble pavilion, and run its café; it will also feature a gallery area, a theater, an internet corner, and a lounge that will host lectures and workshops. Construction is expected to be complete in time for an early-July opening, with the structure due to shutter on September 15. [NYT]

– New Head for MoMA's New Hybrid Mega-Department: On July 1 the Museum of Modern Art's department of prints and illustrated books and department of drawings will merge into the department of prints and drawings, which will be headed by ChristopheCherix, who has helmed the department of prints and illustrated books since 2010, and first joined the department in 2007. Meanwhile, longtime curator of drawings ConnieButler has returned to Los Angeles to curate the HammerMuseum's biennial and teach at UCLA. [AiA]

– Kemper Museum Founders Leave Board: Crosby and BebeKemper, the founders of Kansas City's Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art have opted to step down from the museum's board, though the quotient of Kempers sitting on it will not diminish: MaryKemperWolf, their daughter, has been made the new chairman of the museum's board of trustees, and Sandy and MarinerKemper have also joined the board. "I am grateful to have had a role in building this institution from its start and know Mary will continue to strengthen its legacy in Kansas City and beyond," Bebe Kemper said. "As a filmmaker herself, Mary will champion the role of the artist at the Kemper Museum for many years to come." [Artdaily]

– Irishman Launches Asian Art Prize: The Irish, Hong Kong-based businessman BillCondon has announced the five recipients of his inaugural Multitude Art Prize, which awards prizes totaling $100,000 to contemporary artists from all over the continent. The first set of winners are the Filipino duo of Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, the Turkish artist Ha Za Vu Zu, MoonKyungwon and JeonJoonho from Korea, India's Raqs Media Collective, and the Taiwanese artist YaoJui-chung. "We put together a very important international program and we seem to have a hit a chord," Condon said. "I’d like to do something with this in Ireland at some stage." [Irish Times]