This exhibition presented highlights of a historic 2004 gift from LA collector and MOCA Trustee Blake Byrne to the museum’s permanent collection. Comprising one hundred and twenty-four works by seventy-eight artists, and spanning the 1950s to the early 2000s, this donation represented the single largest gift by a private collector to the museum’s permanent collection. It included works by major artists already in MOCA’s holdings, such as John Baldessari, Mike Kelley, Robert Gober, Edward Ruscha, and Andy Warhol; as well as new names to the collection, like Steve McQueen, Annette Messager, Tony Cragg, and Stephen Balkenhol. Additional highlights included a rare architectural fragment and photograph by Gordon Matta-Clark, an untitled sculpture by Robert Gober, drawings by Marlene Dumas, paintings by Yayoi Kusama, and collages by Jacque Villegle.
The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue.
The Blake Byrne Collection was organized by Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator, and Ann Goldstein, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.