LACMA Improvises Without Art Loans from Russia

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Mike Boehm

CALIFORNIA - The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has bid dasvidaniya to about 30 artworks that Russian authorities had promised as loans to "Gifts of the Sultans: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts," then withheld. Russia has imposed an embargo on all loans to American museums in a display of its displeasure over a U.S. legal decision that has nothing to do with art or museums. That has left LACMA curators and exhibit installers to practice the art of improvisation as they rejigger the show's layout to avert any discernible voids in the presentation when the show opens Sunday with more than 200 other objects from the museum's own collection or loaned by a wide array of non-Russian sources. [link]