Los Angeles–based Ace Gallery was taken over by a bankruptcy trustee after founder Douglas Chrismas defaulted on a $17.5 million court-ordered payment in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Ace consists of two gallery spaces located in LA and Beverly Hills and an estimated 2,750-work collection. Plans are to sell whatever works they can in order to pay back the gallery’s creditors, and determine who has ownership of the thousands of artworks in Ace’s possession. Artist Mary Corse is one of many artists seeking the return of her work but only her pre-1980 artwork, not her more recent work, and she is not canceling her contract with Ace. As of now, the gallery advances her $60,000 per month so that it can exclusively represent her. In the fight to retrieve their work, artists are citing a California law that says that consignments by artists are “not be subject to claim by a creditor of the consignee.”
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