– Philippe Vergne Will Lead L.A. MOCA: After much deliberation, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has tapped current Dia Art Foundation director Philippe Vergne to be its next director, taking over from dealer Jeffrey Deitch. Now it’s Dia’s turn to find a new leader — former director Charles White will serve as an interim director during the search. “My vision is to commit to the most experimental artists of our time, but also to contextualize their work within a broader context,” Vergne said. “And I think MOCA’s collection is one of the best to contextualize that kind of experimentation.” [NYT, LAT, LAT]
– Elaine Wynn Bought $142M Bacon: The mystery buyer behind the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” has been identified as billionaire Elaine Wynn, co-founder of the chain of casinos that bares her name with ex-husband (and fellow top-tier collector) Stephen Wynn. Though Wynn’s collection is said to be small, she does already own another work by Bacon, who is allegedly one of her favorite artists. The record-setting triptych is currently on loan to the Portland Art Museum. [NYT]
– DIA Donations Rolling In: In the wake of Detroit’s bankruptcy filing and the threatened auctioning off of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ collection — and a pledge of $330 million from a coalition of philanthropic organizations — the city has begun receiving donations from concerned individuals who want to help replenish its pension funds and secure its art collection. “Individuals started calling the court saying we wanna give,” said Miram Noland, president of the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, “and the court couldn’t take the money, so... they turned to us and said, ‘Can you put in place a way that individuals can give?’” The organization has set up an online donation site. Meanwhile, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is working on a proposal that would see the state pledge another $350 million toward DIA and the city’s pensions. [Detroit News, WWJ]
– V&A To Publish “Degenerate Art” Inventory: The Victoria and Albert Museum will make the entire list of 16,558 artworks labeled “degenerate art” by the Nazis available and searchable online. The V&A’s copy of the list, published in 1941-42 by the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, was donated to the museum in 1996 by the widow of Austrian dealer Heinrich Robert Fischer. [Independent, TAN]
– Auction Houses Doing Risky Business?: The major auction houses’ current practice of courting big collectors with incentives like waived commissions and cuts of the buyers’ fees is fueling concern of a market collapse as profit margins get smaller and smaller on top lots. [NYT]
– Schiele Portfolio Fake: The discovery of an alleged portfolio of early works by Egon Schiele in a town near Vienna has caused a sensation in Austria, but Jane Kallir, who in 1990 published the artist’s first catalogue raisonné, has already seen the portfolio in question and believes that aside from three early watercolors that are authentic, the whole set is fake. [TAN]
– The U.S. Army’s important collection of military art has been sitting in storage for a decade awaiting the completion of the National Museum of the United States Army, now on track to open at Fort Belvoir in 2018. [WP]
– A work by Tobias Rehberger at Berlin’s national library will be re-unveiled after it was covered up when Op artist Bridget Riley complained that it too closely resembled her 1961 painting “Movement of Squares.” [TAN]
– Collector Nicholas H. Jepson is suing Portland, Oregon’s Galerie Mongeon over a set of seven Edgar Degas prints, which he consigned to the gallery to be appraised and sold, because the dealer refuses to return them. [Courthouse News]
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