LACMA Gets to the Meat of an Iconoclast’s Work

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s latest contemporary art acquisition is untitled, but its subject is no mystery. The sculpture--one of the late Paul Thek’s “meat pieces” from his “Technological Reliquaries” series of 1965--is a meticulously detailed wax depiction of a slab of charred meat, infested with flies and encased in a 19-by-12-by-8 1/2-inch plexiglass vitrine. It will go on view in December.

The museum purchased the piece with a $25,000 grant from the Rothschild Foundation. Established by the will of Judith Rothschild, an abstract painter who died in 1993, the foundation supports and reexamines the work of under-recognized American artists who have died since Sept. 12, 1976.

Twentieth century art associate curator Lynn Zelevansky applied for the grant on behalf of the museum, which is one of 16 institutions to receive Rothschild awards totaling $300,000 in the program’s inaugural year. Grant winners were chosen by a review committee composed of Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art; Anne d’Harnoncourt, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Thomas M. Messer, director emeritus of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; art historian Irving Sandler of the State University of New York at Purchase; and sculptor George Segal.

Thek was an iconoclastic artist who used both traditional art materials and found objects to fashion sculptures and huge installations. Born in 1933 in Brooklyn, he became part of New York’s art scene in the 1960s and died in 1988 of AIDS-related causes. Although he was something of an underground figure, Thek represented the United States at the Sao Paulo Bienal in 1985. He also cultivated a following in Europe, where he worked during the 1970s, producing collaborative “Processions” that combined performance art with sculpture. A retrospective of his work recently has made the rounds of European museums and art centers.

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WHAT’S IT WORTH?: The Pepperdine University School of Law is presenting an art law symposium, “The Numbers Game: New Math of Art and Architecture Appraisal,” Sept. 28 at the school’s Malibu campus. Jessica Darraby, adjunct professor of law, will chair the event, scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Speakers will include government experts from the IRS Art Appraisal Services and the Appraisal Foundation Board in Washington, as well as artists, attorneys, dealers and auction house officials. They will discuss federal tax rules and appraisal-related issues that affect museums, galleries and collectors. Tuition including breakfast, lunch and materials is $250. Information: (310) 456-4653.

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ROSENQUIST SPEAKS: Internationally renowned Pop artist James Rosenquist will deliver this year’s Zeitlin Lecture Wednesday night at Cal State Long Beach. A reception will be held at 6 p.m. at the University Art Museum, where an exhibition of Rosenquist’s prints is on view. The artist will speak at 7 p.m. at the Martha Knoebel Dance Theater. The lecture series was inaugurated in 1979 in honor of the late Jacob Zeitlin, a Los Angeles bookseller, poet and arts patron. Lecture admission is $7. Reservations: (310) 985-5761.

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NEW IN SAN DIEGO: Elizabeth Armstrong, a curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis since 1989, has been named senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Beginning Oct. 28, she will succeed Louis Grachos, who resigned to direct Site Santa Fe, a nonprofit exhibition space in Santa Fe, N.M.

Armstrong received a master’s degree in art history at UC Berkeley in 1982 and started her career as assistant to the curator at the university’s Lowie Museum of Anthropology. Among exhibitions she has organized at the Walker are “Fischli and Weiss: In a Restless World” and “In the Spirit of Fluxus,” which appeared in 1994 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.