MOCA's board of trustees: A house divided

Ten days have passed since news broke of a financial crisis that threatens the very existence of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the nation's premier institution focused on the art of our time. And a week has passed since philanthropist Eli Broad published an Opinion article in The Times that offered $30 million to begin to help shore up and eventually stabilize MOCA's endowment. His reasonable condition: Some of that challenge must be met by others.

So far, MOCA's board of trustees has remained virtually silent on Broad's bold proposition.

I've had conversations with numerous people close to the situation in recent days. Two things are apparent about where MOCA's board stands right now.

First, as a body they are paralyzed. Partly it's because factions are pointing the ship in several different directions at once. There isn't yet a unanimity -- or even a strong plurality -- concerning the institutional goal. The paralysis, it appears, is allowing a drift toward the path of least resistance: an absorption of MOCA into the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Second, many are suspicious of Broad's challenge. Even those who see it as the best path to resolution are cautious. They fear an ulterior motive or hidden agenda, even though there is no indication of one.

Fears are always irrational. In fact, the absence of a hidden motive may be letting imaginations run free, which is keeping full consideration of the challenge off the table. That's a pity.

As Broad wrote in his Opinion article: “It is vital that [MOCA] remain on Grand Avenue, keep its collection and continue its tradition of world-class exhibitions.”

He's right.

--Christopher Knight

Photo: Gordon Matta-Clark's "Splitting," a 1974 project in which he sawed a house in half, was shown in the artist's retrospective at MOCA in 2007. Credit: Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[MOCABoardRLosers]

Before Donald Frazell chimes in with his incoherent, mind-numbing posts, let me just say that I disagree with Knight's assessment. This isn't about fear of Broad. First and foremost it's that the MOCA board are C.H.E.A.P.!!!

They know the right thing to do is for them each to contribute $1 million a piece, but trying to separate L.A. millionaires from their money is as difficult as creating peace in the Middle East.

So, unless there is insane grassroots & public pressure on them - basically to "out" them and their double-standard on spending money (they're probably all getting ready to fly on their NetJets to Art Basel Miami), then this will not be resolved.

Eli Broad, David Geffen, and even past criminals like Michael Milken have way more class than this group of stingy asses.

[MOCABoardRLosers]

If any anonymous insiders - art dealers, auction house specialists - have any insight to how these multimillionaire MOCA board members have spent their money in the last year, please let us know. I'd love to display their hypocrisy. I'd also love to hear on-the-ground reports of their first class trips to Art Basel Miami and what they buy for their own personal collections (rather than to contribute to the museum that helped make them all very wealthy).

So, I guess after pulling into Rosette's estate in their Mercedes S series sedans and dining on a 4-figure catered dinner, they came to no conclusions...other than "what the heck can we do that doesn't involve us contributing money?" Like Wall Streeters, these people want a bailout at the public's expense.

[Flip Wilson]

Classic L.A. small town attitude. Children pretending to be adults and nobody gets to play with the toys. Hey, MOCA board -- grow a pair. Fire the Director. Fire the development department. Go on full tilt drive to raise some funds, hey, guess what -- THATS your job too. Then set museum of course to produce programing that's consistent. Fire the dregs of the staff, you know who, and reset. If you can't do that then pull the plug on yourselves.

[Donald Frazell]

LOL!!! What a groundswell of support!!! 1,557 signatures in a county of 8 million people!LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please, no one cares! Contemporary art is irrelevant to life, and humanity. Only to the brain dead art community, trained by Academies to only understand one thing at a time, if simple enough for an eight year old.

Art is in how things are interconnected, the relationships, of line, color, form, structure, to reflect the intricate yet basic forms of human life. You only see absurd miniscule academic ideas that have no connection to real life. Games. No one cares, but those with self interest, the museums-gallery-academic complex of overpaid, under knowledged monkeys. Contemporary art is dead, get over it, and move on. Begin to study LIFE, get out THERE! out of your overpriced studios, and learn about nature, humanity, and love. things you obviously are dereft of.
LOL!!!!! 1,557 signatures, even ten thousand would be nothing Self absorbed brats.

Art collegia delenda est. !

[MOCABoardDetective]

One more brief observation. Tyler Green suggests, in essence, that those MOCA board members that don’t pony up should recuse themselves from the board. While I agree, I, unfortunately, don’t believe they would do so. Not only would that be a personal act of embarrassment and shame and loss of cocktail circuit invites, it would also do two things that are unacceptable to these board members: A) They would lose their early-look VIP sweetheart deal status with LA & NY galleries to purchase contemporary art at a discount and before a show opens (selling to a MOCA trustee improves an artist’s CV and cachet), and B) it would eliminate the insider information that allows these trustees to purchase art from artists who they know will have upcoming solo/group shows at the museum (before the general public knows).

So, barring a bailout from the Getty or LACMA or Obama administration NEA funds, I think the trustees will eventually come to realize that contributing $1 million is not much to pay to keep their status in the art world, and continue to enrich their coffers.

But first they must feel the storm of shame that would be unleashed against them.

[need your address]

what is your address boardrloser to send the info?

[MOCA take out]

It is still amazing to me that Mr Strick still has a job in this town after all that he has let happen during his tenure. If he had any class at all he'd resign/fall on his sword and take the board of MOCA with him to some arthole somewhere. The crisis narrative about saving ART seems to me somewhat misguided. This is a people problem - the art's not going anywhere, that creepy dungeon on Grand is not going anywhere, the much more useful warehouse in little Tokyo isn't going anywhere. The echo's of 'too big to fail' 'too important' blah blah coming from the local artocracy in the coverage of this story just shows pure self interest in the extreme. Who outside of the artocracy really cares if these institutions merge? Do I hear cost saving? After all, every not-for-profit in this city from skid-row to the valley has a much harder time raising money than either MOCA or LACMA ever has

[varda]

All of us who are part of the board are there for the love of MOCA. We have each contributed our time, our resources, our art to the institution because we believe it serves the contemporary art community like no other organization. The facts surrounding its present situation are far more complicated than how it is portrayed by simple-minded editorials and open letters and blog responses. Hasty decisions
will not save MOCA. Each option has potential to alter the MOCA we have come to admire. Lifelines offered come with many strings attached. Before you judge us so harshly, give us time to do the right thing.

[MOCABoardDetective]

Varda, as long as "the right thing" involves the MOCA board taking both financial responsibility and personal accountability for the museum's budgetary failures, then we're in agreement. But if in the end you people try to finesse a way to get off the hook, then you've lost me. As long as there is a platform for me to respond to open letters and blogs, and as long as the 1600-member-and-growing MOCA Mobilization team remain heated and mobilized, we will be watching the board's every move. There will be transparenc. Many of us understand how the art market games are played, so we will call you out - and shame you - on any disingenuous attempts to deflect responsibility. I will make it my personal mission...guaranteed.

[Michael Buitron]

I can understand a board member not wanting to throw good money after bad. Besides the cash, MOCA needs some new, fiscally responsible leadership. Folding their collection into LACMA's--or worse--selling off work to stay afloat, show the utter lack of commitment to contemporary art among the board members. These folks should immediately step aside.

In a worse-case scenario, MOCA should follow the example of Europe's monasteries during the Dark Ages: pull up the bridge and hunker down until a more enlightened time arrives. In MOCA's case, this would mean putting up a multi-year show of the permanent collection, laying off the staff, and waiting for the next economic upturn when they can tap a new crop of new collector-millionaires.

[MoCA Trustees in Hiding]

Varda's vague reply asks more questions than it answers. First, there is no "Varda" on the MoCA board, which begs the question, Who is she/he? So, "Vards," if the facts are more complicated that how they've been portrayed, then educate us and share the info. And what are these "attached strings" you refer to? It sounds to me like you people are stalling, hiding in undisclosed locations and waiting for a bailout, rather than being proactive. You also talk of your "love of MoCA." Hah! If people only knew of the incestuous link between your position there and how it relates to building your own wealth and status, I'm sure they would disagree. Anyway, enjoy it and keep making those sweetheart purchase deals (and subsequent and auction house sales). We'll read about it in Josh Baer's newsletter or on the art blogs.

[Donald Frazell]

You messed up BEFORE the economy imploded, one built by the likes of those on the boards at all art museums. Broad especially. You broke it, you fix it, that whcih deserves to be fixed. Not all will survive, pick the best for all Americans. MoCA does not fit that description.

[david]

Sell some of the art to other museums to keep it in the public domain. It's only local pride, not public service, that drives the need to keep it in LA. As I understand it, MOCA doesn't have enough space to show most of its collection. If they won't show it, sell it to a museum that will. It should make the fundraising effort to save the museum less daunting.

[Ari]

just in case you missed the click thru of the board members, here it is:
David G. Johnson, Co-Chair
Tom Unterman, Co-Chair
Jeffrey Soros, President
Gil Friesen, Vice Chair

Clifford J. Einstein, Chair Emeritus
Dallas Price-Van Breda, President Emeritus

John Baldessari
William J. Bell
Ruth Bloom
Fabrizio Bonanni
Blake Byrne
Charles Cohen
Kathi Cypres
Rosette V. Delug
Betty Duker
Susan Gersh
Barbara Kruger
Wonmi Kwon
Eugenio Lopez
Lillian Pierson Lovelace
Maurice Marciano
Jane F. Nathanson
Douglas R. Ring
Steven F. Roth
Ed Ruscha
Fred Sands
Larry Sanitsky
Jennifer Simchowitz
Beth Swofford
Steve Tisch
David L. Zimmerman, Jr.

Ex Officio Trustees
Council President Eric Garcetti
Jeremy Strick
The Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa

Life Trustees
Eli Broad
Betye Monell Burton
Beatrice Gersh
Lenore S. Greenberg
Audrey M. Irmas
Frederick M. Nicholas

[LAArtLover]

Ms. Thater,
Great. So, because of the poor upper management and lack of appropriate trusteeship at MOCA, potentially LACMA should suffer? So many of the artist trustees at MOCA have already prospered due to patronage from LACMA, but wait...this is part of the group that encourages the view that LACMA is "provincial."
Nice.

[LAArtLover]

And I was one of the first to sign the petition and join the Facebook group, lest I be thought of as "less than supportive."

[Mat Gleason]

Any chance million-dollar artists like Murakami, Baldessari, Ruscha et al are each going to step up a big cash donation for a museum that has ensured their names are banakable? How about local galleries that MOCA has bought art from?

Is this thing on? Anyone? Bueller.... Bueller....

[Donald Frazell]

The only constructive criticism i have seen on this thread are by Michael Buitron, who just so happens to be the only other contributor with the balls to state his full name. MoCA does have an excellent collection of mostly American late modernist paintings. They are no contemporary, so should be over at LACMA, tricked away from Count Panza with false promises, (you should trust these people?) and should be shown permanently to get more people into the Museums, for no cost. Or take Davids advice, and sell some of the collection, which they seldom show preferring to waste huge amounts of wallspace trying to infer that the other childish musings are deep and thoughtful, by giving them a spacious religious preciousity, when nothing can really help them.

I was at the opening of MoCA, the only good showing they ever had, excellent art by Pollock, Rothko, Kline, and many others. The lighting was wonderful, natural, enhanced the moodiness of the Rothkos, which really need mood lighting to work. but ruined by painting over the overhead daylight, through more bad contemporary architecture, when it was at its very best simple, warm, allowing the art to take center stage naturally. But you cant do that with bad art, and need and the bells and whistles you can to make it cute and witty. Failing badly of course, which is why there is no public outcry to save this museums of the rich and spoiled. Intelligent folks are too busy for childish
amusements.

Congratulations on your petition, all the way up to 1,766! That should make a real impression on public sources of revenue, a real cost effective use of precious funds, that far overshadows schooling, jobs, medical care, that the city is responsible for. LOL!!!

Contemporary Art is dead. Time to join the rest of humanity, not voyeuristically like artistes usually do. Sounding self important while expounding dogmatically on the great issues of the day, while creating pointless trivia for decadent amusement. But learning them, living them, reflecting us in our art, all humanity, not just ones own tiny clique of fools. This takes time and learning, things not received academically, but through participating in life. I admit this is difficult in LA, at least the LA of artistes, WeHo, artsy districts, SM, where life has been contructed to be avoided, and viewed as something separate and beneath the lofty aims and desires of those in....lofts.

Art collegia delenda est. 1,766, LOL!!!

[guess who]

Lack of focus indeed! What happened to encouraging and engendering an urban art community rather than creating and maintaining cushy office jobs for recent MBAs?

MOCA has some cool curators, why stagnate them with sub-par upper and middle management?

Give them/us some awesome summer shows!

Might want to look into the role that Human Resources has played in all this...

[John Seed]

Honestly, Eli Broad has been incredibly generous to MOCA, and I appreciate his approach of asking others to step forward to join him. Think what you will of him -- and like other powerful individuals he has strong views and visible quirks -- but who has done more?

My view is that MOCA may really now have deep support in the LA artist's community. Why? Because from the start it has mainly defined contemporary art as being a kind of imported high culture. MOCA has missed the opportunity to nurture, promote and showcase and collect the works Los Angeles artists in any breadth. If you say "LA doesn't have enough artists of stature" perhaps that is because not enough effort has been made to reach out and help them gain recognition, and this is an opportunity that MOCA has missed.

Even with more money in the bank, the problem is that MOCA may remain an exclusive institution with relatively narrow support. What would be wrong with MOCA being loved, and supported, by more people?