Forbes magazine’s Abigail R. Esman contributed an expose and analysis of the Chinese art-fraud machine last week. Apparently, if you peel away the corruption, bid rigging and self-dealing, China isn’t the world biggest market for art after all. Esman says that China’s biggest auction house, Poly, is an arm of the People’s Liberation Army! Esman [...]
According to the LA Times, prominent Los Angeles Gallery owner Margo Leavin has announced plans to close her gallery, citing a move on the part of art collectors away from the gallery show experience to alternative art spaces and the Internet. “People are approaching art differently today. They’re not seeking out the thoughtful, complete statement [...]
Even NY Times critic Roberta Smith, originally a supporter of LA MOCA’s bold move in appointing flamboyant gallerist Jeffrey Deitch as its new Director, admits his tenure has been disappointing. In a Times article titled “A Los Angeles Museum on Life-Support” she recaps MOCA’s problems, Deitch’s failure to solve them, and the worrisome departure of [...]
Joining John Baldessari, Catherine Opie and Barbara Kruger in a rush to the exit, Ed Ruscha, the last artist on LA MOCA’s board, resigned Monday. The troubled museum, pulled out of a financial hole by Eli Broad and resolutely headed towards a party-filled populist future, ousted noted curator Paul Schimmel a few weeks ago, starting [...]
Independent scholars rejoice-The Getty Research Portal, which launched last month, makes 20,000 documents from the Getty’s collection and eight other libraries available to anyone with an internet connection. The texts, published before 1923 in the U.S. or before 1909 in other countries, are all in the public domain, and are downloadable free of charge. So [...]
Have recent museum shakeups begun to besmirch the once-coveted title of “Museum?” itself? ArtInfo Blogger William Poundstone sees a trend, noting that “at least two incipient L.A. museums are avoiding the M word”. Both the the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LACMA West, and a proposed gay and lesbian museum are considering alternative [...]
L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art is planning an exhibition that will examine the cultural impact of disco music, reports the LA Times.
James Surls is cropping up in unexpected places: Garden and Gun magazine features an informative feature on James Surls’ contributions to the Houston art scene as founder of the Lawndale Art Center and his larger-than-life career and personality. Last year, Surls radically restructured the way he does business, firing all six of his national dealers, [...]
Art philanthropist Eli Broad defended Jeffrey Deitch and the Los Angeles MOCA’s new direction, in an op-ed piece in the LA Times on Sunday, sparking a flurry of commentary, mostly negative. Blake Gopnik, in the Daily Beast, speculates on new shows coming up at MOCA to draw in the crowds the Deitch/Broad faction appears to [...]
Blogger Robert Boyd recaps the furor surrounding LA MOCA’s firing of curator Paul Schimmel, putting it in historical context- “Didn’t Nelson Rockefeller and Stephen Clark fire founding MoMA director Alfred Barr in 1943?” It’s not the meddling that’s new, he says, it’s the “massive rise in the number of super-wealthy individuals” who feel entitled to [...]
