NORTH MIAMI, FL.- The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami and Tate, London, are pleased to announce that Miami collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz have made a landmark donation of groundbreaking contemporary artworks that will be owned jointly by the two institutions. The de la Cruz gift includes the extensive project, No Ghost Just A Shell, a multi-media collaboration originated by Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno, comprised of 17 works by international artists, all based on a Japanese Manga figure named Annlee. The Museum of Contemporary Art will become the only U.S. museum to own the complete version of the No Ghost Just A Shell project. The gift also includes the monumental multi-media installation Zero Hero, by John Bock. MOCA and Tate have established a schedule for rotating these works between the two institutions. In this way, the museums will provide the public with the greatest access to these works.

Rosa de la Cruz noted that the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami and Tate were selected as recipients of these works because of each institution’s clear mission to collect seminal works by contemporary artists, and their emphasis on scholarship, education, and outreach.

Rosa de la Cruz stated, “Carlos and I are delighted that two major works from our collection, the multi-media installation, Zero Hero by John Bock and No Ghost Just a Shell, a collaborative project of 17 artists initiated by Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno, will become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami and Tate in London. Through these joint gifts we wish to celebrate the enormous commitment that these two great institutions have shown to the art of the 21st century by exhibiting and collecting works that explore new boundaries and new definitions. These important installations will become more accessible to a wider public at MOCA and Tate than they would if they stayed in our private collection. We feel that it is important to continue a dialogue and relationship between private and public collections.”

MOCA Executive Director Bonnie Clearwater remarked, “This is the largest single gift of artwork to MOCA to date. The breadth and scope of this gift is an extraordinary endorsement of MOCA’s commitment to collecting and presenting historically significant contemporary art. These were projects that were high on our wish list. We thank Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz for their exceptional generosity and for initiating this wonderful partnership with Tate. We look forward to expanding our alliance with Tate and strengthening MOCA’s international presence.” Ms. Clearwater added, “This gift comes at a crucial time for MOCA as we embark on a major expansion of our Joan Lehman Building in North Miami.”

Nicholas Serota, Director Tate said, “We are indebted to Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz for this imaginative and generous gift and we look forward to working with the Museum of Contemporary Art to show these powerful and important works of contemporary film and video to audiences in Europe and America. Our existing joint ownership arrangements with American museums have been very successful for works in this medium and we are pleased to announce this ongoing partnership.”

MOCA Chairman Irma Braman stated, “Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz’s generosity and commitment to MOCA is unsurpassed. Since the establishment of MOCA as a collecting institution in 1995, Rosa and Carlos have been dedicated to the growth of MOCA as a world-class museum. They have donated over thirty key artworks to MOCA’s collection.”

No Ghost Just A Shell - No Ghost Just A Shell is a celebrated and ambitious project that engaged the collaboration of 17 artists, and raises questions regarding concepts of identity, authenticity, originality, and ownership. The project originated in 1999 when Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno bought the copyright image for a Japanese animation (Manga) character named Annlee from the Japanese agency Kworks, which developed figures for cartoons, advertising and video games. Because Annlee had few of the sophisticated qualities of more complex Manga figures, she was likely to disappear very quickly from the animation scene. Huyghe and Parreno’s purchase of Annlee and their invitation to a group of international artists to appropriate the character and bring her to life via a series of multi-media art works, rescued Annlee from extinction.

Huyghe and Parreno eventually terminated Annlee and prohibited artists from ever creating future works from her digital image. The termination culminated with a staged fireworks display in Miami during the 2002 Art Basel Miami Beach fair, an event in Miami in which Annlee went out in a blaze of glory.

MOCA and Tate now jointly hold the only complete version outside the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, thanks to the extraordinary generosity and foresight of Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz.

Zero Hero - The installation Zero Hero, 2003-2005, by John Bock, was originally presented at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005. Bock, who was born in 1965 near Hamburg, Germany and currently lives in Berlin, is one of the most celebrated German artists to emerge during the 1990s. In Zero Hero, Bock creates his own interpretation of the uncanny life of Kaspar Hauser, a teenage boy who mysteriously appeared on the streets of Nuremberg, Germany in 1828 after years of sensory deprivation. The multi-media installation served as a set for a performance by Bock. The work was presented by the Moore Loft, a non-profit warehouse space in Miami funded by Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz during 2006-2007. Bock’s work has been presented in exhibitions around the world including solo presentations at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2000, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2003. His numerous group exhibitions include the Venice Biennales in 1998 and 2003, Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, 2004, Manifesta 5, Sebastian, 2004, and Documenta 11, Kassel, 2002.

MOCA and Tate - MOCA’s Executive Director Bonnie Clearwater has previously collaborated with the Tate. As curator of the Mark Rothko Foundation, she assisted Tate curators in organizing the Mark Rothko retrospective in 1988 and was a contributing author to its exhibition catalog. Her recent monograph, The Rothko Book was published by Tate Publishing in 2006. Tate Modern Senior Curator Frances Morris organized the exhibition Louise Bourgeois: Stitches in Time, which was presented at MOCA in 2005, and she lectured on Bourgeois’s life and work at the museum in conjunction with the exhibition.