FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, January 18, 2013 THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES (MOCA), ANNOUNCES 2012 ACQUISITIONS 117 significant objects added to museum’s renowned permanent collection through generous gifts and new acquisitions Two permanent collection exhibitions MOCA’s Permanent Collection: A Selection of Recent Acquisitions and A Point of View: Selected Gifts from the Lawrence A. Rickels Collection opening at MOCA Grand Avenue Los Angeles - The Museum of Contemporary Art announced today the acquisition of 117 important objects, adding to its renowned collection of more than 6,700 works. 2012 saw an extremely generous level of giving among its donors and artists, and the efforts of the museum’s Acquisition & Collection, Photography, and Drawings committees, as well as those of many philanthropic individuals and institutions have enabled MOCA to cultivate one of the premier collections of contemporary art in the world. ‚2012 was an extraordinary year for gifts and new acquisitions to the MOCA collection. Several major works acquired have been presented in recent MOCA exhibitions, including the original storyboard for Kenneth Anger’s seminal film Puce Moment, one of the great body prints by David Hammons, a large-scale gunpowder drawing by Cai Guo-Qiang, an installation by the late Mike Kelley donated as a gift from the artist, and the first work by Mark Bradford to enter the MOCA collection,‛ said MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch. Among the 2012 acquisition highlights are; MOCA Announces 2012 Acquisitions Page 2 of 5 MAJOR GIFTS Continuing her generous tradition of giving, one of MOCA’s most engaged patrons and long-serving trustee Dallas Van Breda made a promised gift of Ghost and Stooges (2011), a new painting by Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford, recently presented at MOCA in The Painting Factory, and the first work by the artist to enter the museum’s permanent collection. Following its presentation in the exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Desire for Zero Gravity, March 7, 2012 (2012) was acquired as a remarkable gift of generous patrons and exhibition supporters Julia and Ken Gouw, Eva and Ming Hsieh, and Dominic and Ellen Ng. This is the second gunpowder drawing work by the artist to join the museum’s collection since the generous 2007 gift by East West Bank of 11 works by contemporary Chinese artists. Long-time donors to MOCA, Alan S. Hergott and Curt Shepard continue their history of major gifts to the MOCA collection by donating two sculptures: Untitled (March 5th) # 2 (1991) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Untitled (White Light #2) (2006) by Terence Koh. Lauren and Benedikt Taschen donated 21 works to the collection including a sculpture, The Spiderman (2008) by David Altmejd, a sculpture Judas was sad (2007) and painting God (Dirty in the blind) (2007) by Terence Koh, three works by Marnie Weber; The Circus Girl and the Frog, The Spirit Bear and The Spirit Horse, all completed in 2007, and a painting Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans (2006) by Kehinde Wiley. Reinforcing his commitment to young, emerging artists, Stefan Simchowitz donated five works including a painting Untitled (Viele Tote durch Hermann Giesler!), (2007) by André Butzer, a painting Untitled, 2007 by Ernesto Caivano, a sculpture, Orange Shadow, (2007), by Jim Drain, and Ben Jones’s new video installation Roadtrip, (2012) which was recently presented at the museum. Marc Selwyn, donor and patron to MOCA, donated a painting Slow Silver (Square), (2006) by Marco Maggi, one of the artists featured in the 2007 MOCA exhibition, Poetics of the Handmade. Mixed media installation, The Little Girl’s Room (1980) by Mike Kelley, which was presented in the 2011 MOCA exhibition, Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981, was acquired as a gift of the late artist, Noritoshi Hirakawa’s mixed media installation Garden of Nirvana (1997) was donated by the artist and Jeffrey Deitch, and a short film, GREED, The New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli (2009) by Francesco Vezzoli, presented as part of a special MOCA online presentation in 2012, was also donated by the artist. Also acquired were Ali Banisadr’s It’s in the Air (2002), a gift of Thaddaeus Ropac; Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin Chess (2003) a gift of The Getty Trust; a mixed media work, Untitled (wall), (2000-2001) by Liz Larner donated by the Ring-Miscikowski Trust; two sculptures, Life After Death on Canvas (1983/1997) and Bomb Drop (1967-68/2000) by Dennis Hopper, presented in the museum’s recent exhibition Dennis Hopper: Double Standard, a gift from the Dennis Hopper Art Trust; two sculptures by Victor Estrada from Laurence A. Rickels follows his gift of 122 works to MOCA in 2011; a photograph by Guy de Cointet from Brian and MOCA Announces 2012 Acquisitions Page 3 of 5 Paula Dailey; works by Iranian artist Shoja Azari and Shiva Ahmadi gifted by Leila Heller; Alex Israel’s mixed media work, As it Lays (2012) gifted by new donors to the museum Theo Danjuma and James Lindon; Daniel Joseph Martinez ‘s North Korea (2011), a gift of Samuel H. Schwartz; a mixed media assemblage work by Timothy Washington, a gift of Giovanna Zamboni-Paulis; multiple works by Jens Liebchen, Max Regenberg, Oliver Sieber, Olaf Unverzart, Robert Voit, and Janko Woltersmann donated by Anthony E. Nicholas; fours works on paper by Alan Sonfist a gift of Herbert R. and Paula Molner; 16 photographs by Berenice Abbott donated by Saul E. Levi; a video by Teresa Hubbard/ Alexander Birchler from Julie Blakeslee; and works by Los Angeles artists Dan McCleary and Raymond Pettibon given by the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles. Tauba Auerbach’s Untitled (Fold), (2012), recently presented in the exhibition The Painting Factory, is a promised gift of MOCA trustee Maurice Marciano and Paul Marciano. PURCHASES Purchases of works by the museum in 2012 include a sculpture Cromosaturación (1965) by Venezuelan- born artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, purchased by the museum jointly with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden with the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest Fund, 2011; one of the great body print works Body Print (1974–75) by American artist David Hammons coming at the end of the artist’s crucial time in Los Angeles, purchased with funds provided by the Drawings Committee, Jeffrey Deitch, Jane Siegal, Jeffrey Pechter, Bob Tuttle, Ron Handler and a gift of Giovanna Zamboni-Paulis; a spray painting, SP213 (2012) by Los Angeles artist Sterling Ruby, purchased with funds provided by the Acquisitions and Collection Committee; Los Angeles-based artist Kaari Upson’s Internal Pocket (2011), purchased with funds provided by the Curatorial Discretionary Fund; Puce Women (1949) by Kenneth Anger, an early work on paper and story board for Anger’s iconic film Puce Moment, purchased with funds provided by the Drawings Committee; American artist Ilene Segalove’s prints All the Pants I had except the Ones I Was Wearing (Front and Back)(1974/2010) purchased with funds provided by the Photography Committee; Damián Ortega’s Moby Dick (2004) and Escarabajo (2005), parts 2 and 3 of the Beetle Trilogy (Part I Cosmic Thing (2002) is already in the museum’s permanent collection, each purchased with funds provided by the Jumex Fund for Contemporary Latin American Art; Daniel Joseph Martinez’s large sculpture Who Killed Liberty, Can You Hear That, It’s The Sound Of Inevitability, The Sound Of Your Death, 2012 also purchased with funds provided by the Jumex Fund for Contemporary Latin American Art, Fran Siegel’s work on paper Overland 14 (2011) purchased with funds provided by Nancy Berman and Alan Bloch; a Henry Taylor painting Warning Shots Not Required (2011) purchased with funds provided by the Acquisitions and Collections Committee, and a mixed-media and embroidery work by Francesco Vezzoli, Crying Portrait of Tatjana Patitz as a Renaissance Madonna with Holy Child (After Raffaello) (2010) purchased with funds provided by The Bell Family Foundation and The Broad Art Foundation. NEW EXHIBITIONS CELEBRATE MOCA’S PERMANENT COLLECTION Since 2010, key donations and purchases have brought important artworks into the museum's permanent collection in a range of media, from paintings and sculptures to works on paper, videos, and installations. Continuing its commitment to conserve the great work of the present for future generations and to the ongoing presentation of its expanding collection, two new exhibitions featuring a select group of objects MOCA Announces 2012 Acquisitions Page 4 of 5 acquired over the past two years include; MOCA’s Permanent Collection: A Selection of Recent Acquisitions celebrating this invaluable patronage and the artworks the museum has championed, A Point of View: Selected Gifts from the Lawrence A. Rickels Collection presenting, the selections from the 2011 gift by writer, professor, and collector Laurence A. Rickels of 122 works made almost exclusively between 1993 and 2003 by Los Angeles artists, with an emphasis on works on paper and photography. Included in the exhibition are a photograph from Catherine Opie’s freeway series, featured in MOCA’s 1997 exhibition Focus Series: Catherine Opie, as well as 13 artworks by Richard Hawkins, which nearly doubles MOCA’s collection of his work, already one of the largest Hawkins collections at any American museum, works by John Baldessari, Jeremy Blake, Meg Cranston, Vincent Fecteau, Lyle Ashton Harris, Jim Isermann, Mary Kelly, Mike Kelley, Karen Kilimnik, Lisa Lapinski, Liz Larner, William Leavitt, Sharon Lockhart, Keith Mayerson, Dave Muller, Kori Newkirk, Jennifer Pastor, Raymond Pettibon, Stephen Prina, Allen Ruppersberg, Jim Shaw, Frances Stark, Diana Thater, Marnie Weber, James Welling, Pae White, and Christopher Williams. Rickels’s collection reflects many contemporary themes and genres to emerge in 1990s art, including queer identity, photoconceptualism, and a Gothic sensibility, as well as his interest in new media and photography.