Displaying items by tag: acquire

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013, Ann Goldstein announced that she will resign as director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Goldstein has helmed the museum since 2010 and oversaw its recent expansion, which reached completion in September 2012. Goldstein will leave her post on December 1, 2013.

After announcing her sudden departure, Goldstein released the following statement:

 It has been a privilege to serve this great institution, to oversee its re-opening after nearly nine years of closure, and to live and work in a community that deeply values the vital presence of the Stedelijk Museum in people’s lives. While assuming responsibility for a closed museum presented tremendous challenges, it also offered unexpected opportunities. With The Temporary Stedelijk (2010–12) we were able to reconsider what a museum could be for its publics—open or closed—offering exhibitions, public programs and education initiatives in our unfinished historic museum building and throughout Amsterdam prior to our reopening. Now, nearly a year since our reopening, we have achieved our long-anticipated goal of a fully functioning, international museum with an exhibition schedule that prepared for the next two years. I announced my resignation to the Supervisory Board on June 26, 2013, confident that my work is done and the museum is firmly poised for a new artistic director to lead it into the future. I feel a strong affection for this remarkable institution’s exceptionally devoted staff, board, and community, and have often said that the esteemed and inspiring history of the Stedelijk is part of my DNA as a museum professional. It will surely always remain close to my heart.

During her time at the Stedelijk, Goldstein helped acquire over 1,500 works for the museum’s permanent collection; over 600 of those pieces were donated. There has been some speculation that Goldstein will return to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art where she served as the senior curator from 1983 to 2009.

On Monday, April 29, 2013 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem announced that they had come together to jointly acquire the Mishneh Torah. A rare 15^th century illuminated Hebrew manuscript, the Mishneh Torah features text from Moses Maimonides, a Jewish writer and philosopher from the Middle Ages. The Met and the Israel Museum have agreed to exhibit the Torah at both institutions on a rotating schedule.

Created in 1457, the Mishneh Torah is the second of a two-volume manuscript and features six large illustrations and 32 smaller images in the style of Northern Italian Renaissance miniature painting. The Vatican owns the first volume of the manuscript. The Mishneh Torah was restored at the Israel Museum’s conservation lab and has been on loan to the institution since 2007.

The Mishneh Torah was to be the leading item at an auction of the collection of Michael and Judy Steinhardt on Monday at Sotheby’s. The manuscript, which was expected to bring between $4.5 million and $6 million at auction, was purchased by the museums before the sale began. Sotheby’s has declined to reveal how much the two institutions paid for the Mishneh Torah.

Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund manager and philanthropist, and his wife, Judy, have amassed a renowned Judaica collection, which includes silver and decorative objects, textiles, and fine art. Steinhardt said, “The acquisition of this remarkable manuscript by the Israel Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is poetic given Judy’s and my longstanding involvement with both institutions; it is particularly meaningful that this event marks the first significant collaboration between the two museums.”

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has offered to acquire L.A.’s struggling Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). MOCA has been at the center of a number of controversies after the museum’s chief curator, Paul Schimmel, left the institution in June 2012 after 22 years on the job. Critics have bashed the museum for becoming too celebrity focused and all of the artists who once served on the museum’s board including John Baldessari (b. 1931), Barbara Kruger (b. 1945), and Ed Ruscha (b. 1937), have resigned after disagreeing with the institution’s new direction.

LACMA Director, Michael Govan, offered to raise $100 million for MOCA’s two locations in exchange for the acquisition. LACMA made a similar offer to MOCA, which is currently helmed by former New York gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch, back in 2008. LACMA officials believe that the merger would strengthen both institutions and provide MOCA with stability and strong leadership.

MOCA’s contributions, grants, and operating profits have all declined in recent years.