Stanford Scam Leaves Artist Without Gold for Show

The US government’s ongoing investigation into Allen Stanford has ensnared an unlikely victim: the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. Artist Chris Burden was to open an exhibition featuring 220 pounds of solid gold, worth $3.3 million, that the gallery purchased for him. But the company they bought it from is a subsidiary of Stanford Financial Group, whose assets remain frozen, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Burden remains famous for a 1971 performance during which an assistant shot him in the arm. The gold bars in the new exhibition, the gallery tells the Times of London, were to show how “duality resides in both the literal and figurative aspects of weights and measures.” A Gagosian spokeswoman said Burden hopes to open the show with new gold in the coming weeks. (More Gagosian stories.)