The Portuguese collector Luiz Teixeira de Freitas is to withdraw a long-term loan of several hundred drawings from Porto’s Serralves Foundation in solidarity with its creative director João Ribas, who resigned his position on 20 September in a row with the museum’s board over censorship. The Serralves Foundation runs Porto’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which currently holds Teixereira de Freitas’s collection on a ten-year loan.
Ribas accused the museum of censoring an exhibition he curated of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work after a number of works were withdrawn from the exhibition. The museum disputes that any censorship has taken place, contending that Ribas made the decision not to show twenty photographs that had been slated for inclusion. ARTnews reports that the Mapplethorpe Foundation takes the museum’s position and drawing attention to the ‘dramatic timing’ of Ribas’ resignation. ‘We do not believe that any censorship occurred,’ the foundation was quoted as stating.
1 October
