Buchel responded by filing his own action that would require the museum to remove the work, unseen, from the gallery and cover all the costs of extracting every last bombshell and shipping container from the cavernous space. "It's unprecedented for an art museum to be suing an artist for the right to show his unfinished—and, in this case, modified and distorted—work against his will," said Zaretsky. (His language draws directly on the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which provides that an artist has the right to "prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation." The legal question at stake concerns whether, even though the artist's name has been removed, these objects constitute a work of art in progress, or the raw material of an abandoned project.)

People's Court
Rather than wait to see how the courts decide, it seems that Mass MoCA and Buchel have both taken steps to protect their reputations, mounting exhibitions in efforts to garner support from two different segments of the public. On May 26, the museum opened "Made at Mass MoCA," an exhibition documenting some of the 60 or so large-scale works that have been installed at the institution over the last decade. On display are photographs and other materials documenting the triumphant realization of major works by Tim Hawkinson, Gregory Crewdson, Ann Hamilton, and other notable artists. But "Made at Mass MoCA" also includes a display of press clippings that describe and respond to the Buchel debacle. This part of the exhibition has drawn much criticism—most notably from Ken Johnson at the Boston Globe—for painting the artist as a brat with a wish list, who walked away from the project.

Further enflaming the controversy, the show actually incorporates elements of Training Ground for Democracy—at least in silhouette—into its body. Visitors who make their way through Building 5 to the exhibition space pass by the unfinished installation, which has been covered with tarps in an effort to obscure it from full view, but the curious still catch glimpses of the assembled materials on their way and get a sense of the work's intended scale.

The exhibition has been steadily drawing curious visitors since its opening, and no doubt many of them are lured more by the Buchel controversy than the content of the show. Thompson hopes that the exhibition illuminates the process that the museum engages in with artists who make work there, showing the institution as a good-faith collaborator routinely giving a green light to even the most ambitious work. "Making art and working with artists to realize projects that might not be able to happen in other situations is really the core of our institution," said Thompson, "and we really enjoy showing the process of making these works as we go."

Seeking Supporters
While Mass MoCA attempts to draw support from a local museum-going public, Buchel has taken his case to the international art world, courting the support of artists, dealers, collectors, and curators attending June's Art Basel fair in his native Switzerland. At the booth of his European dealer, the Zurich- and London-based Hauser & Wirth, Buchel presented a work called Made by MASS MOCA (Training Ground for Democracy) (2007), which responded directly to the Massachusetts exhibition.

A series of three documents mounted in chronological order and framed, the work portrays Training Ground for Democracy's descent into litigation from the artist's point of view. The first document is a letter to gallerist Iwan Wirth from Thompson expressing a desire to exhibit the project. This is followed by the March 28 letter sent by the director to Buchel and, finally, a facsimile of the claim that Mass MoCA brought against the artist in court.

"The reason he made the piece was to use the tools that he has as an artist and the platform of Art Basel to respond to 'Made at Mass MoCA,'" said Hauser & Wirth Zurich director Cornelia Providoli. "Also, by selling the piece, he can pay his lawyer," she added. The work, which sells in an edition of two, plus one artist's proof, was priced at €45,000. As of mid-July, each version is on hold for sympathetic collectors.