LA MoCA PULLS OUT OF RICHARD HAMILTON RETROSPECTIVE

LA MoCA pulls out of Richard Hamilton retrospective

After chief curator Schimmel’s departure, there is no space in museum’s schedule for British pop art show

By Martin Bailey. Web only

Published online: 26 July 2012

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, has pulled out of a Richard Hamilton retrospective, after the abrupt departure of its long-standing chief curator, Paul Schimmel at the end of June. Schimmel is the co-curator of the Hamilton exhibition.

A MoCA spokeswoman tells The Art Newspaper that the gallery will “not be participating” in the international touring show of the late British pop artist’s work. Hamilton died in September 2011. Schimmel, however, confirms that he will “continue to be involved with the exhibition”, which he is co-organising with Vicente Todoli, the former director of London’s Tate Modern.

The exhibition was due to travel to Los Angeles, London, Madrid and Philadelphia. A spokeswoman for Tate Modern says the show “will still open” in spring 2014 in London. The Madrid venue is slightly less certain. A spokeswoman for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia confirms that the exhibition is scheduled, but it is too far off “to know for sure”. Whether the Philadelphia Museum of Art will present the Hamilton show remains unclear.

More certain is a separate exhibition of Hamilton’s late works at the National Gallery in London (10 October-13 January 2013). This will include three large-scale studies for what was to have been his last painting, The Unknown Masterpiece, which the artist never completed.

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