MOCA Lists 2001 Acquisitions

A large-scale sculpture with an equally large-scale title--Nancy Rubins’ 2001 work “Chas’ Stainless Steel, Mark Thompson’s Airplane Parts, About 1000 Pounds of Stainless Steel Wire and Gagosian’s Beverly Hills Space,” fashioned from used airplane parts--is among the artworks acquired through gifts and purchases by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 2001.

The list of 130 works acquired last year, announced Wednesday, also includes large-scale sculptures by Gabriel Orozco and Paul McCarthy. The outsized pieces represent the first major sculpture acquisitions to MOCA’s collection by the three artists, all of whom have had exhibitions at the museum. MOCA also acquired another large-scale work, Joel Shapiro’s 1981 “Untitled,” from the artist’s early career. The museum will not comment on the acquisitions’ value. A selection will go on display Sunday at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center space. The museum is looking into exhibiting some of the larger-scale works at its downtown sites later in 2002.

Other significant acquisitions include Mona Hatoum’s “Map (second version)” (1999); William Kentridge’s “Medicine Chest” (2001); McCarthy’s “Tokyo Santa, Santa’s Trees” (1999); Orozco’s “Toilet Ventilators (Ventiladores toilet)” (1997/2000), which was a gift from the artist; and Sara Sze’s “Many a Slip.”

Los Angeles collector Kourosh Larizadeh contributed 21 works by L.A. artists, including Chris Finley, Jason Meadows, Pentti Monkkonen, Jorge Pardo, Jason Rhoades, Sarah Seager and Jim Shaw. Judd Marmor donated Walter de Maria’s “High Energy Unit” (1966), Donald Judd’s “Untitled” (date unknown), Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Untitled” (circa 1982) and Oyvind Fahlstrom’s “Study for Lithograph to Poem by Walasse Ting” (1963).

With funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York and former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, now president of the Warhol foundation, the museum purchased two works from 2000 by Christopher Williams, three works on paper by Jim Isermann, and Louise Lawler’s “Pleasure More.” Wachs also personally donated six works, including works by John Cage, Ann Chu, Nancy Dwyer, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Hartnett.

Artist James Welling, whose mid-career survey of photographs was presented at MOCA in 2001, made a gift of 37 photographs spanning his career. And artist Mike Kelley donated three works by other artists: William Leavitt’s “Interior With Cactus Painting and Spiral (1984), Franz West’s “0 15” (1994-1999) and Isermann’s “Untitled.” Drawings added to the collection include works by Barry Le Va, Adrian Piper and Lari Pittman.

Through the Curator’s Discretionary Fund, the museum purchased Robert Barry’s “Invitation Piece” (1972-73), Richard Hawkins’ “black, green, blue” (2000), Los Carpintero’s “Caja” (2001), Allan Sekula’s “ Untitled Slide Sequence” (1972), Diana Thater’s “RGB windows for MOCA” (1992/2001) and Hellen Van Meene’s “Untitled (Series Blanc)” (1995-1998).