MOCA, though foundering, is still afloat*

Although there is “an urgency” for leaders of L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art to right its foundering fiscal ship, it still has enough money to get by at least into the next fiscal year, and museum-goers can still anticipate new exhibitions there.

“This situation is not that drastic. MOCA is not teetering on that kind of an edge,” board member Douglas R. Ring, a real estate developer and husband of former L.A. City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, said this week.  “The board in general has very deep pockets, but whether they are deep enough to solve the problem we’ve got is another question.”

Until normalcy returns, art lovers interested in MOCA’s post-World War II offerings — hailed by critics and contemporary art experts as among the nation’s top collections and exhibition programs — will have much slimmer pickings than they have grown accustomed to. MOCA has scheduled just six shows, about half the usual number, for this fiscal year, which ends in June. And only four additional shows are currently listed on the museum’s website for the season starting in July. *UPDATE: MOCA officials said that three additional shows drawn from the permanent collection will open by June 30, bringing the year's total to nine, rather than six.

Among the possible solutions: arts philanthropist Eli Broad’s offer to donate $30 million as an “investment” in MOCA’s rescue. However, museum Director Jeremy Strick has said a variety of avenues are being explored, including raising large sums from other sources and entering into some sort of fiscally beneficial merger or partnership with another art institution.

Museum officials have declined to say how much is left in MOCA’s coffers or to detail its current finances, beyond saying that this year’s budget is now $21 million after a 10% emergency spending cut that will include closing the Geffen Contemporary for at least six-and-a-half months after Dec. 15, when the current exhibition of conceptual art is scheduled to close. *UPDATE: The Geffen Contemporary will close Jan. 5 until at least June 30.

After that, shows will be limited to the main museum on Grand Avenue and MOCA’s space at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

Public records show that MOCA, as of mid-2007, was about 45% poorer than it had been in mid-2000, its assets having dropped from $67.1 million to $37.5 million and its investment funds from $38.2 million to $20.4 million. To get by, the museum had borrowed $17.2 million from its endowment, taking “restricted” money originally donated for narrowly specified uses and spending that money instead on general operations.

“The outcome, or risk, to MOCA of this condition cannot presently be determined,” the museum’s independent auditors wrote in a note to its mid-2007 financial statement. “The board ... and management intend to develop a plan to repay the deficiencies.”

Before the overall economy’s slide began in September, MOCA’s policy since 2005 had been to try to grow its way out of its difficulties. It ramped up exhibitions, hoping the resulting buzz would attract not just visitors but also the donations it desperately needed. The tack was controversial within the board: Former trustee Susan Bay-Nimoy said this week that she resigned in mid-2006 because her pleas to economize rather than increase spending on exhibitions were not being heeded.

Meanwhile, trustee Ring said, he entered discussions with government officials about MOCA obtaining cost-free use of public land near either the Grand Avenue or the Geffen Contemporary facility — the aim being either a new wing on Grand to compensate for that venue’s size limitations or a renovation and expansion at the Geffen, a converted warehouse that currently lacks the fine-tuned climate controls needed to display more delicate artworks.

With an expansion campaign, museum leaders hoped to be able to land massive donations that would not only pay for construction but also replenish the museum’s endowment and restore its financial equilibrium.

The Geffen site came to be seen as more workable, Ring said, because MOCA wouldn’t have to compete for land with the massive though still not begun Grand Avenue project, a housing and retail plan seen as a linchpin of downtown revitalization. But after national and global economic shock set in, MOCA abandoned planning for an expansion campaign and the museum sought other ways to reverse its fiscal slide.

“I would not bet anything on what the ultimate solution will be,” Ring said, acknowledging that the board of trustees is still divided about how to proceed — including whether MOCA's ultimate salvation lies in cutting back or in thinking big. Eventually, he said, unity will be a must: “The board’s going to have to” unify behind a plan. “It’s not a multiple choice.”

-- Mike Boehm

Photo: Maintenance worker Juan Ramirez sweeps up outside the Geffen Contemporary. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Information Man]

Thanks to the L.A. Times for keeping up on this because the public does need to know what's going on. Some of us know someone who "knows", meaning the degrees of separation concerning information are not to far apart. I have heard over a year and half ago that MOCA was thinking of selling off its collection and or trying to merge with LACMA - this is well before our current so-called economic down turn. So for Strick to imply that this is to blame, I believe is just a load of malarkey. Strick is part of the problem and most likely some of the board members, and yes we know some of them are working hard and doing their best but so far not good enough. So there needs to be "Change", yes that word again - but not an Obama "change" more like a Nixon "Change" -- someone needs to resign or get kicked out. The most alarming thing that everyone should know is that MOCA tried to do this merger or basically eventually liquidate MOCA without saying a work to anyone or being held "accountable" - yes that work again. They tried to do this in a very quiet and sly way, in the undercover of the night, but luckily someone leaked it to the press and so the Times have been doing their part -- now it's time for everyone else to. There needs to be accountability, transparency, and creativity coupled with a reasonable plan to help save MOCA. Perhaps an outside group to oversee, audit, and make a fair assessment of the situation and most importantly to make recommendations for proper action. Because as of now the people running or ruining the MOCA ship now are obviously not interested in truly saving MOCA. Is there anyone there with enough integrity to take blame and even gracefully bow out and resign? Broad anted up -- where are the rest of you? And no matter what you think of him, it was generous and it puts the ball in MOCA's court. Let's not make this a "Custard's Last Stand" and get rid of the fools.

[John]

Strick and others must STOP talking about a merger. It's as simple as this: NO MERGER. You merge, you die. Merger means one less crucial arts institution for LA, a big city underserved by arts museums as it is. Let's be humans here. Let's be civilized. Let's remember what makes us both of those things, and make sure MOCA respects its existence, rather than commit a suicide that would be a blow to the city, its humanity and its residents.

[brady westwater]

There is no need for MOCA to compete with the Grand Avenue Project for public land on which to build the new home they need. There are multiple other options along the Grand Avenue corridor but the leadership at MOCA - for whatever reasons - has refused to even look at these options. Hopefully, though, maybe they now will.

[Steve Sailer]

Maybe MOCA would be more popular with the public if it didn't have out front of it the single ugliest sculpture in the whole world -- this thing that looks like a giant chicken skeleton made up of mangled airplane parts. The sign on it says that Eli Broad donated it to MOCA. I think Eli should take it back and install it on his front lawn so he can enjoy it every day.

[brady westwater]

I wasn't going to post my three part essay on 'Saving MOCA' until I had finished all three parts - but since this post above validates much of what I have to say in the first two parts, I am going to post them now - and the add part 3 Thursday night.

http://lacowboy.blogspot.com/2008/12/saving-moca-first-of-three-parts.html

And part 1 links to part 2 at the end.

[BT]

I hope the article is mistaken about the plan to shutter the Geffen after December 15. The Martin Kippenberger show is scheduled to run through January 5. A large and climactic part of that show, which also occupies much of the Grand Ave location, is at the Geffen. Is MOCA planning to shut down half of a big, years in the making show of international interest during the holidays? Surely the administrators can keep the doors open for an additional three weeks to allow the Kippenberger show to complete it's scheduled run.

[Donald Frazell]

Brady can read my three part article on how Contemporary Art came to be nothing but marketing hype.

Imperial Clothing
artnewsblog.com
July15-16

Or just google me. I am everywhere.

art collegia delenda est

[James]

I hope after following the much needed coverage in the Times that the Board of MOCA has the guts to do the right thing and either ask Jeremy Strick to resign, or if he refuses, terminate his contract. He has driven MOCA into the ground while collecting a salary of almost half a million dollars annually, and holding a loan from the Board to pay for his house. Change starts at the top.

[John Seed]

I have a modest proposal for MOCA: sell the Panza Collection.

It was purchased in the mid-eighties for 11 million and consists of modern works by Rauschenberg, Rothko, and others. Maybe these modern works could be purchased by LACMA, and MOCA could continue its emphasis on Post-Modern works.

The $100 million plus would make a very fine endowment.