Troubled LA Museum Wins $30M Bailout

Mafia threats spark plea for museum and staff

(NEWSER) - The director of a Naples museum is urging Germany to grant asylum to the museum and its staff seeking to flee the mob. Antonio Manfredi says the contemporary art museum has been plagued by vandalism and threats from the local Mafia. The museum has put on exhibitions dealing with social issues, including the prevalence of organized crime, Der Spiegel reports. More»

Pablo Picasso's 'The Actor' is hardly the first expensive accident

(NEWSER) - The art student who tripped and tore a hole in a Picasso painting is probably fairly embarrassed—but will, perhaps, feel better knowing others can sympathize. The Independent lists nine other art catastrophes, some accidental and some not:

• Cy Twombly: A woman kissed one of his paintings, leaving it smeared with lipstick—she said she was “just trying to warm up” the white canvas.
• Qing vase: A Cambridge museum visitor slipped down the stairs, possibly thanks to an untied shoelace, and smashed a set of 300-year-old vases.

(NEWSER) - Herb and Dorothy Vogel had just modest incomes—he was a postal clerk, she a librarian—but over four decades they acquired more than 3,600 drawings, paintings, and collages from America's leading artists. They collected so much that they had to stuff works under their bed. But now the Vogels' one-bedroom apartment has been cleaned out, and their works have been scattered: 50 each to 50 museums across the country plus another 1,100 to the National Gallery in Washington. More»

Former MoCA chief takes over Hirshhorn after yearlong search

(NEWSER) - Richard Koshalek, former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, will become the new head of the Hirshhorn Museum—the modern gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Koshalek expanded MoCA over 20 years, leaving in 1999 to run the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Last year he left Art Center early, following protests by students and faculty over tuition increases and a $50 million library. More»

MoCA director prepares to resign as bigger museum offers lifeline

(NEWSER) - The future of LA's troubled Museum of Contemporary Art became somewhat clearer yesterday, as the institution's director began negotiating his resignation and the larger Los Angeles County Museum of Art proposed a merger. Tomorrow the MoCA board will meet to decide the fate of the troubled museum, which has teetered near collapse from shrinking investments and financial mismanagement, reports the New York Times. More»