LA MOCA RENEWS PARTNERSHIP; DE PURY ACQUIRED; SOTHEBY’S IN QATAR
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has renewed its partnership, first established in 2000, with Pacific Design Center. Under the terms of this partnership, effective through 2023, MoCA will present up to four exhibitions per year in its West Hollywood location, known as MoCA Pacific Design Center. Building on MoCA’s renowned history of architecture exhibitions and PDC’s reputation as a center for showcasing fine traditional and contemporary design products, MoCA Pacific Design Center’s programming will focus on contemporary architecture and design issues and practices beginning in March. Large-scale monographic and thematic exhibitions devoted to these areas will continue to be presented at MoCA’s Grand Avenue and Geffen Contemporary sites. “I am delighted and honored to continue our relationship with Pacific Design Center,” said MoCA director Jeremy Strick. “Since 2001, our exhibition space at PDC has given us crosstown visibility, complementing our two downtown sites, and the opportunity to present our innovative exhibitions to a broader audience that includes the architecture and design community of West Hollywood.”
In other news, according to Bloomberg’s John Varoli, Moscow-based Mercury Group has bought control of Phillips de Pury & Company, the New York– and London-based auction house said today. Phillips’s founder and chairman, Simon de Pury, retains his position and stake in the company as part of what the auction house’s news release calls “a strategic partnership.” “We have seen tremendous growth in the company over the last four years,” said de Pury. “This partnership with a major player in the luxury sector will allow us to provide a unique platform to new and fast-growing markets. Russia has clearly emerged as an important art market.” Phillips said that its contemporary art sales rose 80 percent in the first half of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007. Besides auctions, Phillips conducts private sales, stages exhibitions, and helps clients build collections.
Sotheby’s, the international art-auction house, today announced plans to open an office in Doha, Qatar, where it will hold its first major international series of auctions in early 2009. At a press conference, Bill Ruprecht, president and chief executive of Sotheby’s, said, “Doha is today a center of dynamic economic and cultural growth, not only for the region but also internationally. The magnificent Museum of Islamic Art as well as other museums planned for this city are stirring huge excitement around the world, and it is a great honor for Sotheby’s to be a part of this dynamism.”
