—Jason Webb of Reuters reports that families of the victims of Basque terrorists are protesting a current photography exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao of work by Clemente Bernad, which they feel is sympathetic to the ETA rebels. Webb writes:
The museum said it would not remove the photographs unless ordered to do so by the courts.
—The complicated Salander-O’Reilly Galleries creditors story has too much libel-suit potential for me to touch without quoting directly from court papers, so let me update you with a bunch of links:
Philip Boroff of Bloomberg reports today that New York State Supreme Court Judge Richard Lowe will hold a hearing tomorrow on creditors’ claims. According to Boroff:
[Lawrence] Salander, 58, and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries are accused in lawsuits of defrauding customers and business partners and failing to pay more than $30 million in debt….Yesterday, Salander canceled what would have been the opening of his last exhibition after London-based dealer Clovis Whitfield removed about half of the artworks planned for display. That followed four days when the gallery was locked under an earlier order from Lowe.
Bloomberg had a previous story here. But the publication that has been following the story most closely is the Maine Antique Digest, here, here, here and here. The Art Newspaper weighs in here.
—And in other news about galleries in legal trouble, The Art Newspaper reports on the sentencing of pre-Columbian art dealer Edward Merrin
—In happier news, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has finally found a new director, David Brigham, former executive director of the Allentown Art Museum. He succeeds Derek Gillman, who a year ago became director of the Barnes Foundation. Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer has more here.