Beurre fingers

This spring, the Pompidou Center hosted a major show about the rise of contemporary art in one of the world's major art-making centers. Titled "Los Angeles 1955-85," the exhibit featured hundreds of works -- and challenged the usual, tired art historical view that New York was the only nexus of American contemporary art. (The New York Times, remarkably, seems not to have known of the show. Not a word. I mean if Artkrush can do a Parisian show, you think the NYT might have a clue about it, right? Right?)

In a fantastic story on the front page of today's LA Times, Christopher Reynolds reveals that the Pompidou "accidentally destroyed" two works: A nice LACMA-owned Craig Kauffman sculpture and a Peter Alexander. Both were, essentially, dropped. A third piece, a Bob Irwin 'dot painting' was damaged. From the LAT:

"It's not our guilt," Catherine Grenier, who curated the show for the Pompidou, said from her Paris home. "For me, it's not a coincidence. These two works were made of the same materials, and made in the same period. And both were incredibly fragile."

A LACMA curator seemed unconcerned: "We documented the images photographically," she explained. "We still have the pictures of the pieces. In color, too."

Oops! Wait a second. Sorry, my bad -- I just got confused there. That was actually pretty much LACMA's reaction to its destruction of its own art, not to the Pompidou's destruction of LACMA's art.

Let's see if I can get this right: "It's a terribly important piece, for the artist, the institution and the community. It's a major loss for us," LACMA curator Lynn Zelevansky said of the Kauffman. "Whatever the market wants to say about it, in terms of the history of Los Angeles art, this is crucial material, and this was a very important piece."

Ah, much better. (Kind of.)

Because this is the story that keeps on giving, then Grenier, the French curator, kept talking: "We are waiting for the report to tell exactly what was wrong. But it's not something with the installation, not something with the public."

Uh, then, uh... how did the works get destroyed? Evil Hogwarts? George W. Bush tried to give them a backrub? Puh-leeze.