“The goal at this point is stabilizing them and get them standing as an independent institution,” John Wilmerding, the president of the National Gallery’s board, said. It emerged that the board was discussing a potential five-year accord under which the National Gallery of Art in Washington would collaborate with the museum on joint programming and exhibitions but would not put up any money. Then, last week, the circus that the trustees have allowed to unfold took a bizarre turn that seemed almost intended to divert attention from the county museum’s offer. Broad, although nothing concrete has emerged so far. There have also been reports of discussions of an alliance with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, which has ties to Mr. This combination of achievement and vulnerability has made the contemporary museum an attractive takeover target for other institutions, primarily the Los Angeles County Museum. But his main mistake was to be the only person optimistic or naïve enough to take the job in the first place. Deitch, who has certainly made some missteps. Deitch was given little choice but to strip the museum of staff and infrastructure, including entire departments.įrom the start, the Los Angeles art world and news media have heaped abuse on Mr. Then, in 2010, the board chose the New York art dealer Jeffrey Deitch as the museum’s new director. Broad, who had been a trustee at the institution’s founding in 1979, returned in 2008.
The board began losing valuable members as soon as Mr. With this relative pittance, the billionaire philanthropist gained control of the museum’s increasingly dysfunctional board of trustees. That year the proposal prompted him to “rescue” the contemporary museum with just enough money - now around $16 million - to keep it from closing, but not nearly enough to stabilize it. Broad is vehemently opposed to the merger offer, which was first made in 2008 and renewed last month. The sad truth, however, is that the museum has achieved all of this by habitually living beyond its means, drawing down its endowment to meet operating expenses. The international art world is also in its debt. No other institution has achieved quite this combination the city’s artists and other progressive museums in Los Angeles would not be where they are today without it. The contemporary museum has also built an exemplary collection of art of the postwar period. These have vividly defined the era’s artistic trajectories, laying out and revising on a grand, often global scale the origins and influence of phenomena like Minimal Art, Conceptualism, Performance art and film. It has mounted groundbreaking surveys - “1965-1975: Reconsidering the Art Object,” from 1996, and “Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Art Object 1949-1979,” from 1998, come to mind. What this museum has done for art since World War II is something like what the Museum of Modern Art did for art between the two world wars. Scores of critics have tried to convince the board of the value of the institution it is supposed to be stewarding. Broad and unusually passive trustees has forced to its knees one of the greatest American museums of the postwar era.
#MOCA MUSEUM VA JOBS PROFESSIONAL#
Only with him gone will the museum be able to attract the serious money, dedicated board members, professional staff and - most important - strong, visionary director that it needs. Their first step should be to distance themselves from Eli Broad, their ruling if nonvoting trustee, who fiercely opposed the merger but has been instrumental in bringing the museum to this impasse. Now the trustees need to prove definitively that they finally understand the cultural importance of their museum, the danger in which they have placed it and the need for action.
While this is a positive sign, sighs of relief that the museum will remain independent are premature. We are working quickly toward that goal.” “The board understands that this will require a significant increase in MOCA’s endowment to ensure its strong financial standing. “The board is in agreement that the best future for MOCA would be as an independent institution,” it said in part. But on Tuesday the museum issued a cryptic statement. The proposal would have allowed the contemporary art institution to keep its name and building and opened the way for an infusion of $100 million. After five years of seeming to sit on its hands (and wallets) while the Museum of Contemporary Art was being run into the ground, the institution’s board appears to have rejected an offer to merge with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The news out of Los Angeles may have some people pinching themselves in disbelief.
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