Kapoor The Toledo Art Museum announced its plans to to review dozens of works received and purchased from the New York dealer Subhash Kapoor between 2001 and 2010. The Toledo Museum of Art was one of many institutions that acquired materials from Kapoor, including a Ganesh a figure from India. While Kapoor pled guilty to selling stolen property, the Toledo Museum is one of the first to disclose its acquisitions — gifts and purchases from the dealer.
Read: Toledo Museum of Art Website; NYT.
Vase “Then there were 15” On Feb. 16, 2014, Maximo Caminero, an artist living in Miami, visited the Perez Art Museum Miami and vandalized an Ai Weiwei vase installation. He was recorded picking up one of the 16 vases in “Colored Vase” series, holding it in his hands and then dropping to the floor…. “the video shows him calmly putting his hands into his pockets and strolling off.” Caminero, alleged he was protesting museum’s preferential treatment of foreign artists over local talent; he was arrested for criminal mischief, he is out on a bail and facing prison sentence. The vase was covered by insurance In response to the allegations of protest, The New York Times quoted Ai Weiwei as saying “he should choose another way, because this will bring him trouble to destroy property that does not belong to him.” Chinese artist loaned the works to the Miami museum; the remaining vases are due to travel to Brooklyn Museum next.*
Read: Nick Madigan, “Behind the Smashing of a Vase: An Artist Says the Destruction of Ai Weiwei’s Work was a Protest” TNYT, Feb. 19, 2014
* In 2012, Tate Britain organized an exhibit “Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm.” Let’s talk about having such an exhibit in the United States about National and International attacks on art for various speech reasons.
