More reactions to Friday's ruling in Springfield.
Time Magazine's Richard Lacayo: "As I said in July, the museum's decision to display his work in unifinished state, against his will, 'has always struck me as not so much a reasonable curatorial judgment call as an institutional temper tantrum.' Nothing about Judge Michael A. Ponsor's decision has changed that for me. I find it strange that Ponsor could conclude that showing a half finished work wouldn't harm the artists's reputation. That might be true of Michelangelo's Dying Slave or the fragmentary version of Manet's Execution of the Emperor Maximilian .... But that's because we all have in our minds a pretty full picture of Manet's or Michelangelo's entire output as artists. Buchel is Swiss, and the MoCA installation would have been his first major work in the U.S. Hard as it might have been for MoCA to just suck it up and move on, that's what they should have done."
Portfolio magazine's Callen Bair: "The museum may have the law on its side, but its image has suffered a body blow, and this fiasco is likely to haunt it."
Meanwhile, we filed our Notice of Appeal of Judge Ponsor's decision this afternoon.
