MOCA accepts Eli Broad's $30-million lifeline, appoints CEO

After weeks of conjecture, the board of the financially strapped Museum of Contemporary Art has voted to accept a $30-million bailout offer from billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, a founder and life trustee of the museum and the city’s largest arts patron.

In addition, MOCA’s beleaguered director, Jeremy Strick, has resigned and MOCA has appointed UCLA Chancellor Emeritus Charles E. Young as the museum’s first chief executive.

The Broad deal, to be announced Tuesday, ends speculation that the museum might opt to accept a merger offer made last week by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

According to the agreement, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation will match contributions to MOCA’s endowment up to $15 million and provide $3 million a year for exhibition support for five years.

In an interview Monday, Broad, a staunch downtown supporter, said he made his offer because it would be a “real blow to this city” if the downtown museum, a linchpin of the planned Grand Avenue redevelopment, did not survive.

Broad said he was not requiring MOCA to raise $15 million in matching funds in order to receive the $15-million challenge grant but rather would match endowment funds “dollar for dollar” with what MOCA was able to raise from trustees and others, with a cap of $15 million.

“It’s very simple — they raise a dollar, the foundation puts in a dollar,” Broad said.

The agreement also includes a 90-day window to “allow any responsible party to replace the Broad Foundation on identical terms.”

In an interview Monday, MOCA board co-chairmen Tom Unterman and David G. Johnson said that museum trustees had pledged or promised more than $20 million in new gifts since the museum’s financial troubles became public in November. The executives declined to name specific board members who were planning donations.

Broad’s agreement calls for MOCA to “continue operating as an independent world-class contemporary art museum” and to maintain both its headquarters on Grand Avenue and the Geffen Contemporary space in Little Tokyo. The plan requires MOCA to “keep its collection intact and not sell any works of art.”

The agreement also requires MOCA to operate with an annual budget of “no less than $13 million and no more than $16 million in cash expenses” but says that the museum may operate at a higher level if it has the cash income to do so. In recent years, the museum’s budget has averaged $20 million, Unterman said.

Broad said he did not demand the resignation of Strick or the appointment of Young in order for MOCA to accept his challenge grant, although he supported both decisions and was consulted about the choice of Young.

Through a spokeswoman, Strick, who led the museum for nine years, declined to comment.

During his tenure, Strick presided over financial shortfalls that resulted in the museum’s dipping into funds from “restricted” accounts.

“We’re a donor — we’re not on the board, we’re not running MOCA in any way, shape or form,” Broad said of his charitable foundation.

Broad’s decision to make the $30-million offer to MOCA in November pitted the city’s most powerful arts patron against LACMA, which houses the largest art collection west of the Mississippi.

Broad, who funded the $56-million Broad Contemporary Art Museum on the LACMA campus, dashed the county museum’s hopes of acquiring his extensive private collection of contemporary art when he disclosed plans in January to instead retain his holdings for loan to multiple museums. He said Monday that he perceived no rift between himself and LACMA and would continue to support both the county museum and MOCA.

Unterman said Young was being given the title “chief executive officer” rather than director because Young is expected to oversee the museum’s business operations rather than make artistic decisions.

“Chuck Young is a very distinguished leader and fills many roles, but he would be the first person to say that he is not a person of the art world,” Unterman said. “We didn’t want to connote that he is going to be the next director of the museum.”

Young will work in tandem with a newly appointed advisory committee of arts leaders, including John R. Lane, president and chief executive of the New Art Trust and director emeritus of the Dallas Museum of Art; Warhol Foundation President Joel Wachs; John Walsh, director emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum; and financial advisor Gary Cypres. A successor to Strick has not been named.

Broad, 75, made his initial fortune in real estate through Kaufman & Broad, now KB Home. He also founded and led SunAmerica, now a subsidiary of American International Group, until 2000, when he stepped down to concentrate full time on philanthropy.

Although also noted for substantial gifts toward educational and medical institutions, Broad made a spate of major donations to Los Angeles arts institutions in 2008. Not only did the Broad Contemporary Art Museum open, but the businessman also donated $6 million to Los Angeles Opera for its upcoming production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle and $10 million to the new Broad Stage at Santa Monica College.

--Diane Haithman

Top photo: MOCA's Grand Avenue building. Bottom photo: Charles E. Young, teaching a class at UCLA this fall. Photos by Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Comments

Strick should be commended for taking MOCA to new heights while the Board did little to support real fundraising and instead concocted financial concepts that Strick had no choice but to follow. Strick propelled MOCA to world class status while his Board never blossomed. Hurray for Broad for saving the day for the moment. Let's see MOCA's Board step up and answer the call...finally.

[Mat Gleason]

Jeremy Srick's high-water mark was coordinating local tourism officials to recognize that MOCA's big WARHOL show was worthy of a public/private partnership push. Once then-Mayor Hahn was on board, the show brought the masses to MOCA. Strick's mistake was in thinking that trendy local galleries had Warhols of their own and blew tons of MOCA cash acquiring terrible art and letting his curators organize suspect surveys of commercial cash cows.

[David Blackburn]

We're fortunate to have such generous citizens! Thank you !!!

[Jack Henry]

Downtown LA has no soul. Tall buildings don't make a "downtown." MOCA is in the wrong place. The Board is completely incompetent. Strick was spineless.

[Downtowner]

Whereas I was ready to comment on how happy I am that MOCA has gone with Broad's offer and how happy I am that Broad was that forward-thinking in the first place to make the offer, I must condemn "Jack Henry" for the 'no soul' comment. No, tall buildings don't make a downtown, but art galleries, amazing restaurants, a community of interested citizens, culturally-uplifting events, and one of the best Contemporary Art collections do. Downtown LA not only has a soul, but one that is full on good food and friendly associations.
On a personal note, you nitwits who refuse to pass the 405 might actually try going to downtown before you pass judgment!

[MILDRED JARROW RILEY]

AS A ONE OF THE FOUNDING MEMBERS OF MOCA AND LACMA I AM SO HAPPY THAT MOCA IS BEING SAVED. BEING AN ARTIST [DIGITAL, ACRILIC, OIL , POTTERY ETC.] AT THE AGE OF 91 MY LIFE IS SO FULL.! I AM SO GRATEFUL THAT THE BROADS ARE HELPING TO KEEP ART ALIVE. AS THE WIDOW OF CHAPIN RILEY I HAVE SO MANY AMAZING MEMORIES.

[wofter]

Jeremy Strick takes all the blows. We,the public and the membership, are supposed to believe that the prior board's financial mismanagement was nothing to do with anyone but Strick. What crap! What exactly did the very accomplished and successful board do to stop the endowment being blown over a series of years in operations. By seemingly allowing all the blame to fall on Strick it would suggest that the board its auditors and its controllers did not know and for sure they did. No wonder so many of the board quit or resigned over the past few years. Now MOCA is just another part of Broad-dom and I guess we need to be grateful for that but we should also be forewarned that his affections are fickle. I am sure Michael Govan and LACMA have thoughts about this

[Mat Gleason's Apprentice]

MOCA employees are breathing a huge sigh of relief now that Jeremy's Reign of Error is finally over! A bag of toenail clippings has more personality than Mr. Strick. Any renoun MOCA enjoys is definitely NOT due to that little gray mouse. Remember how much cooler and more cutting-edge MOCA used to be in the '90's when Richard Koshalek was at the helm? It can happen again! Note to MOCA Trustees: Next time, pick a director with charm and charisma! Someone who isn't afraid of his own shadow would be a good start! I'm thinking someone with the brains of a Govan and the youth & flowing sexy locks of a Dudamel. Traits like those help bring in enthusiastic donors. So again, no more rusty automatons for MOCA. Good luck!

[Donald Frazell]

As long as no public funds or incentives of any iind are used, mmore power to them. Good luck, and things will get more truly conservative under Young, not wasting money on foolish parties and shows. And slowly heading the museum towards real art, the art that will soon arise upon the deathbed of Contemporary art, as in that since Warhol, and may return to its Modernist roots. Which was clipped off and left for ruin. Self absortion, fetishes, psycho babble and Meism are dead in the funeral pyre they created, this recesion, Created by the very people who like the aburdist entertainment of Contemp art. Now lets fix the damn art schools. fire the scoundrels!

art collegia delenda est

[HMF]

I just read Donald Frazell's infantile comment. I am glad that we have MOCA, and glad for the Geffen. Contemporary art is culturally relevant, and it's important for art and artists to grow. The thing that I think kills art is when people are too narrow minded to accept contemporary art and expect artists of today to rehash 19th century methods in their own works. I am glad that places like MOCA promote art produced in the last thirty years, and that these works have greater relevance to current culture and production of art today.

[Donald Frazell]

Just went through the new Broad Gallery at LACMA, talk about an overaged day care center. its Neverland for a buncha Peter Pans and Wendies, with the odds of Wendies growing up more than the litle peties. Its all about play, just on a scale of grandiose arrogance never seen before in history, and why Koons puppy looked so appropriate iat versailles.

The cute Serra "scultprures" are the epitome of the Age of Excess. How much energy and material went into creating things that are at best a thrid rate canyon, go out into the country and experiencew real life, not sterilized versions where it is safe and one can look hip. To other fools. What a waste. Incredible. and all he has to do is design it, and have real workers make it. Contemp art is in Contempt of mankind. Spoiled children, whats to understand? Silly games academics have imparted to gullible children, to sepeerate them from daddies money.

simple. Read Imperial Clothing, predicted this recession too, created by the very people who patronize Contemp art, and the artistes daddies.

art collegia delenda est