Cady Noland has repudiated another work claiming it had been restored without her consent. Scott Mueller, an Ohio collector, had tried to buy the work, “Log Cabin Blank with Screw Eyes and Cafe Door,” from a German gallery, Court House News reports:
Mueller, a trustee at Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), claims that he agreed to buy the sculpture through a dealer at the Berlin-based Janssen Gallery on July 2, 2014. He said that he paid more than a million to the gallery’s Singapore office, but that Noland got furious once informed that that Mueller planned to restore the work.
“Noland angrily denounced the restoration of the artwork without her knowledge and approval,” according to the federal complaint Mueller filed in New York on Monday. “She further stated that any effort to display or sell the sculpture must include notice that the piece was remade without the artist’s consent, that it now consists of unoriginal materials, and that she does not approve of the work.”
Mueller says that the piece belonged to German collector Wilhelm Schurmann and that the Manhattan-based Marisa Newman Projects facilitated the deal.
“Noland also sent by facsimile a handwritten note to Mueller on or about July 18, 2014, stating, ‘This is not an artwork’ and objecting to the fact that the sculpture was ‘repaired by a consevator [sic] BUT THE ARTIST WASN’T CONSULTED,” the complaint states. (Emphasis in the original.)
After consulting with Schurmann, gallery owner Michael Janssen told Mueller’s representative there were “not much options to calm ‘crazy’ Cady down,” according to the complaint.
Mueller alleges that the Janssen Gallery still has not repaid $800,000 of the original transfer.
