© 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Joseph Beuys, “Filzanzug (Felt Suit)” (1970)

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In May the museum announced plans to renovate the castle in which its collection of Beuys works is housed and reinstall it, starting in 2010. But now both the artist's private secretary Heiner Bastian and his widow, Eva Beuys have spoken out against the plan, and Bastian has sent a petition protesting the plan, which has been signed by 64 art-world figures, from megadealer Larry Gagosian to artist Matthew Barney, to Jürgen Rüttgers, president of North Rhein-Westphalia, where the museum is located, and which contributes funding. The main complaint is that the facilities are inadequate to properly conserve Beuys's works.

Eva Beuys has long been dissatisfied with Moyland, and there's been talk of suing Moyland to reclaim works as well as an entire documentation archive housed elsewhere, which her lawyer argues does not rightfully belong to Moyland.

Meanwhile, the Moyland foundation is also involved in a dispute over copyright and the documentation of performances. Last May, an exhibition at the museum including photographs from a Beuys performance was temporarily shut down after VG BildKunst, a German organization that protects copyright (and headed by the Beuys family lawyer), argued that the "staccato-like dismemberment of an action through individual photographs is an encroachment on the flow of the action and thus, from a juristic point of view, a reworking of the artwork.” Last week a Dusseldorf court ruled that due to a legal error the foundation was not obliged to close down the show. A further decision about the case is expected next March and could have wide-reaching implications for the documentation of performance art. Meanwhile, the VG Bildkunst hasn't allowed the Moyland to reproduce any Beuys works in a year.

Read more at Artforum.