More than 400 turn out at the Geffen Contemporary to support troubled MOCA

About 450 people, including a number of prominent Los Angeles artists, crowded into the Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Contemporary space in Little Tokyo on Sunday afternoon, drawn to a hastily arranged rally of sorts in support of MOCA, spurred by recent reports of dire financial problems that threaten the existence of the downtown museum.

Others found out about the event, organized by artists Cindy Bernard and Diana Thater, through the heavily trafficked Facebook page created for their MOCA Mobilization, which describes itself as "an independent community group formed to support the Museum and its staff." 

Speakers included George Baker, UCLA associate professor of art history, who was previously scheduled to speak on conceptualism in art in California but instead got swept up by the mobilization; Los Angeles Cultural Affairs chief Olga Garay; and artist Richard Jackson. Former MOCA curator Julie Lazar and artist Alexis Smith made impromptu remarks stressing the importance of the museum to the world of contemporary art.

Because of the long line still waiting outside the Geffen at the scheduled start time of 3 p.m., the speakers did not begin their remarks until about half an hour later to make sure everyone could get inside to be part of what we'll call the "MOCA Mobe." A museum spokeswoman said that a little more than $4,000 was collected at the door, mostly in admission fees but also including 21 new memberships.

Though $4,000 is a nice return for an afternoon at the Geffen Contemporary, that amount will not put a dent in the museum's financial problems, which will require millions to assuage.

A handful of MOCA representatives were on hand, including chief curator Paul Schimmel and board member Blake Byrne, but they refused to reveal any of the past week's boardroom secrets and would acknowledge only that they were here to show the flag for the artists and the museum.

Or, perhaps, show the arm band: After the event, MOCA grant writer Elizabeth Jordan could be found outside with a gaggle of friends who were all wearing "SAVE MOCA" armbands made by Jordan, fashioned of torn white cloth and lettered with a black Sharpie marker.

Indeed, in her opening remarks Bernard cautioned the crowd that the museum officials present were on hand as a "source of support, not information" -- and added that though audience members would get a chance to offer brief comments at the end of the speeches, there would be no Q & A. UPDATE: An earlier version of this item incorrectly attributed this quote to Thater.

Bernard's warning did not, however, prevent one audience member from shouting out a pointed question that was on many minds on Sunday and went unanswered: "Where is [museum Director] Jeremy Strick?"

Photographer and video artist Judy Fiskin probably didn't know why Strick wasn't there, but she could speak to why she was: "I'm just here to be with my fellow artists and express our dismay at what's happening," she said. "MOCA really is the core of the contemporary art world in Los Angeles... without MOCA we are going to go back to being provincial, it's MOCA that brought us out of that state."

The speakers' podium was set up in front of a Chris Burden installation called "Exposing the Foundation of the Museum," which looks just like it sounds: Three 9-feet-deep excavation pits that lay bare what's underneath the museum floor, with wooden steps going down inside.

Some attendees could not help but draw the connection between the deep trenches in the floor and the fact that MOCA has dug itself into a major financial hole.

At the podium, artist Richard Jackson put a positive spin on it: "The piece exposes the foundation that 30 years later works fine," he said. "I think we should just get people to fill it all back up with money."

Off the podium, another attendee was less charitable. Upon seeing chief curator Schimmel standing in one of the pits with a few others before the event began, he cried out in mock dismay: "Schimmel has just disappeared underground!"

Photographer, writer and critic Allan Sekula of CalArts indulged in a little gallows humor to make his point: "The best thing that artists who have work in the MOCA collection could do is to collectively commit suicide so the value of their work would go up -- people on the board who just want to cash out by giving up the collection would come out much better," he joked.

But seriously, Sekula added: "Strictly in market terms, a dead artist is more valuable than a living artist -- but in cultural terms, unless you have a community of living artists, institutions are nothing more than mausoleums." He gestured at the very-alive crowd gathered in the gallery. "I think that's what this, here, manifests."

--Diane Haithman

Photos: Diane Haithman/Los Angeles Times

 

Comments

[teenagerobot]

Publishing the phrase "Art colleges must be destroyed" constitutes a threat against the local schools and the students and teachers working in them. Mr. Frazell should be removed from this blog immediately for making violent threats against specific targets.

[Donald Frazell]

LOL!!! And artistes AREN'T completley self absorbed and weak, frail, scared little children? LOL!!! Get over your precious self, gol get a job, adn realize death comes to all of us oneday. Death to colleges is a take on Pliny the Elders famous, for those who actually know something of history or anything else. Cartago delenda est. Carthat musut be destroyed, as carthage was rebuilt after the Second Punic war(Hannibals for you ignorant children).

The Academy of the late nineteenth century has been rebuilt, in a new way to take the battering truth can give it. You are its children, without talent, knowledge, or fortitude. You know, character. And character is neccessary for god art, as Purpose is everything.

As the Post Impressionists tore down that old academy, so the rot from the debris of this latest Gilded Age of decadence shall bring new growth, once again dealing with the real world, not the tiny inbred forces of reactionary Art. For that is what you are, tame, weak, asking no questions of value to a real world in search of meaning, and Purpose. You have none, or if you do, will see the fall of its patrons as opportunity, those who created both this economic disaster and the arts, and get back to exploring our world, Finding ways to approach truth, and find both god, and peace of heart that has always been Arts goals.

Back to your meaningless "work:. For those who can do, those who cant toe the line and create fluff to assuage the powers that be. Those that brought us into a Depression. Those who seek to glorify mankind, and not himself, wil now flourish in the rotted decay of the past. You.

Imperial Clothing Art collegia delenda est

[MMMcCarthy]

I think that all this talk needs to be funneled into a place of use...go to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46490296653
(you can see it even if you're not a facebook member)
The MOCA Mobilization committee is trying...you can HELP!!!!

[vaporgirl]

I agree w/Teenagerobot. I thought these comments were moderated. I don't understand why one writer, Donald Frazell, is allowed to spam this blog. It really gets in the way of useful discussion.

[Donald Frazell]

There is no discussion in the arts anymore, its all the same PC garbage excusing anything as art, as the academies teach it. So they can make money. They sell the idea that anyone can be an artist. Like any other field, some are more talented than others, and then some work harder too. Those who do both, and make art of use to society, by spending deaces learning who we are, our past, our hearts become artists. To fulfill arts purpose, to visualize the web of life, of which art is but one thread, no more or less important than any other.

But artistes want to think they are "special", and they are in the "education" kind of way. And so make themselves useless. Art must have purpose to exist. Saying it is anything makes it nothing. All words are but symbols and must have definitions to exist. There are many forms of art, contemporary art is therapy, fetishes, playgrounds where games are created of such little use few can or want to play them.

Real art is like basketball, then those with no athletic ability come up with weird games no one wants to play, so they can be called the best at what they do. Curling. Rhythmic gymanstics. Downhill snowboarding(halfpipe is kinda cool, and atheltic.) If you make something irrelevant enough, anyone can make a name in its tiny community. This is the tate of contemporary arts, no one gives a damn. Those with real creative skills ahve gone into movies and design, applied arts. Fine arts are dead. We are talking creative arts anyway, those of the soul. Michelangelo, Cezanne, Braque. Klee, Miles Davis, Coltrane.

What you all do is none of these, not even Fine arts, which are there to pleasure the rich by decorating their homes. Your pickled critters and woven nipples are playthings, where those with too many homes store their trophies of society gatherings, Irrelevant toys. Soon to be just footnotes of the Society page, nothing to do with culture, which finds the common thread which weave us together. That is art, that whcih defines who WE are, humanity, and out striving to be more, to reachfor God. A concept you fear to deal with. But is the essence of who we are, what we are to do, where we must go. Gauguins cry, and all true artists.

Where do you stand?

Art collegia delenda est