Director Strick said to be latest casualty at MOCA

The financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art struggled with efforts to secure its future Thursday as its beleaguered director, Jeremy Strick, approached the end of his tenure and board members moved toward a bailout deal with billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.

One member of the museum’s Board of Trustees, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Strick had resigned during a “tearful” scene at a meeting of the board. A MOCA spokeswoman, however, denied that.

“Jeremy Strick did not submit his resignation; that is inaccurate,” said spokeswoman Elizabeth Hinckley. “MOCA’s official position is that Strick did not resign as the director of MOCA. He is still the director of MOCA. He has not resigned at all.”

The museum issued a statement after the board had met for much of the day saying that trustees were still considering outside proposals to stabilize the institution’s bottom line.

“The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees is continuing to review the options presented to the full board today. MOCA anticipates making a further announcement as early as next week regarding the outcome of these discussions,” the statement said.

The problems at MOCA, which was founded in 1979 and is widely considered one of the finest contemporary art museums in the world, became public knowledge in mid-November, when The Times reported that Strick was seeking large cash infusions from donors to solve a financial crisis.

The museum’s federal tax returns show that early in this decade, it had spent all $20 million of its unrestricted funds to meet routine operating costs. By mid-2007, it had borrowed an additional $7.5 million from “restricted” accounts, designated by donors for specific uses.

As a result of the revelations, the California attorney general’s office is looking into the museum’s finances.

The MOCA board convened Thursday for the second time this week to continue to discuss two recent bailout offers: a merger proposal from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a $30-million donation from Broad, contingent on MOCA’s being able to match $15 million of the grant with other funds.

Broad came forward in late November with the $30-million offer. And this week, LACMA stepped up to the plate by proposing a merger with MOCA that would allow the downtown contemporary museum to exhibit its collections at LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion under construction on LACMA’s Wilshire Boulevard campus.

Strick, who grew up in Los Angeles, was brought in as director in 1999. He earned his bachelor’s degree in art history at UC Santa Cruz and pursued doctoral studies at Harvard. Before coming to MOCA, he had served as a curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the St. Louis Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

At MOCA, the low-key and scholarly administrator was perceived as a lavish spender.  On his watch, the museum’s budget rose from $15.6 million in fiscal 1999-2000 to $21.2 million in 2006-07.

-- Diane Haithman

Photo: Jeremy Strick Credit: Ovation TV / MOCA L.A.

Comments

[OK_ART]

Jeremy Strick is a truly decent human being and a serious scholar who put programming first. Yes, the business end of the museum should have been a VERY close second but tragically for all, it was not. Mr. Strick needn't be the scapegoat for all of MOCA's troubles. That's just WRONG.

[rembrandt]

you don't have to be a "scapegoat" to take responsibility for your failures -- and Strick is a big failure, however nice a guy he is. If he was a volunteer, I'd give him a break. But he took a salary, a big one, and turned out to be incompetent. In this case, saying the truth has to take precedence over being nice. . . .

[Titanic in LA]

Uh, good man or not, let's put it this way: the director is the captain, and the museum a ship. And Strick ran the museum into a fiscal iceberg, Titanic-style. Nautical metaphors aside, even during the recent economic boom time he ran a deficit budget. The captain is responsible for his ship and the director for his/her museum. Sorry, Strick needs to go. I don't think anyone is saying he's a bad man, but director. . . While maybe I feel bad about Strick, I feel more badly about his 98 member staff who's jobs, futures and families his mismanagement will deeply affect.

It's true though, Strick is not SOLELY to blame, the board of MOCA should share that burden. Everyone should be let go.

[Renee]

I bet he will be just the first in a long line of people who will either be forced out or resign if Broad gains control through his bailout.

[L.C.]

Robots don't cry.

[Flip Wilson]

Strick is a swell guy. Nice to talk to and share thoughts with, but he's simply not a fundraiser.

It's that simple.

The board has responsibility for authorizing drawing funds from the endowment, so they are as liable as Strick. Additionally the board shares responsibility for helping raise funds for MOCA. They too failed to do that.

Going forward MOCA needs individuals on the board and as the institution's director that can do just that. Raise funding in additional to oversee the artistic integrity of the museum.

It's swell to go to fun parties, but there's more to sitting on a board and running a museum.

[Bruce Cana Fox]

Hi Folks,
I just went to two of the MOCA venues yesterday and I think I am beginning to understand the troubles a bit better. At MOCA Pacific Design Center, it is in a separate building, and an obviously expensive one. And there were very few visitors. And there was less space in there than in some of the unused spaces in the PDC itself. That has to be a big expense and drag on the budget, even as the staff outnumbered the patrons for much of my visit.
And I was at MOCA Grand Avenue yesterday. There are two exhibits, one by a very angry old lady, whose anger seems to have been fully justified, but I only found a few pieces that I actually liked looking at. And the German guy, his stuff was uniformly ugly, ego maniacal and fully in tune with the nasty art of the mainstream movement of the 70's and 80's. I don't object to seeing this stuff once in a while to bring balance to the depiction of the art world, but you just can't set up this visual rejection exhibit after exhibit and expect people to keep coming back.
Now, I may be out of touch with the current tastes of the art world, but I believe that a few things from the permanent collection and a few things in each exhibit that are actually nice to look at (every artist slips up now and then and makes something nice) would keep more people coming back. And the guards outnumbered the patrons at Grand for much of the time. When I go to LACMA, there is always a balance.
One final note: The piece in front of the store at Grand is a marvel of aircraft junkyard art, and I actually like it, but note that several of the parts are marked W-69A. Those are nose cones from Air Force nuclear weapons. They might be letting some bad juju drift into the area. Can't tell.
[rant mode off]
Regards,
Fox sends.

[Donald Frazell]

You should go the the Temporary Contemporary(Geffen) in little Tokyo. Its REALLY depressing, silly conceptual stuff, bunch fools sitting around thinking, foolish thoughts. Dont really DO anything. And life is about doing, thoughts are meaningless without leading to or becoming directly action. We aint dead, yet. Gotta life in this world, not some effeminant ivory tower.

No one there either. Maybe at the Japansese museum next door.

See above that the phillips collection got a nice endowment, but then, its a real museum with real art. the rich stil got plenty of money, they are just going to spend it with much more discernment now, and old money wants quality, New money like LA just wants to be hip, it tries real, real hard, and nothing less cool or pathetic than that.
The epitaph for MoCA. RIP

art collegia delenda est

[Edgar Luis]

What went wrong??? I been hearing this and that about MOCA's financial crisis, but what is the real truth..And why isnt LACMA in cirisis.

I been going to both museums since i was a kid and both have beautiful and breathtaking permenant collections and their shows are pretty good.

SO why is LACMA is not in crisis and MOCA is??

[TheWayItIs]

Edgar - Two reasons: First, because LACMA has art spanning thousands of years and cultures and thus appeals to a much larger base of visitors than MOCA, which is pretty much works of the last 50 years, and a lot of it covering genres (minimalism, conceptual, installations) that don't appeal to many outside of art school academics. And second, because LACMA is located in the center of town, easily accessible to everyone from the westside to the eastside. MOCA is in Downtown LA which is still considered a trek - and not a pleasant one - from both locals and tourists alike. It's pretty simple really. MOCA can only survive by either only showing beautiful, populist, uplifting works of art, or just merging and moving to LACMA.

[Donald Frazell]

Uh, MoCA is smack in the middle of downtown, you know people do live to the east and south of there, not everyone is a westsider. Actually, most people in LA Live to the north south or east. They need to be included, not jsut the trendies of the hills, who are truly far from American culture.

Contemporary art simply has no appeal, because its irreleveant childs play, pseudo intellectualism. If an idea doesnt lead to action, to concrete worth, it isnt worth a damn. And that means art too, as true art inspires people to action, not through propoganda, but through finding common cause, a link that binds us together. This Contemp stuff separates, and wastes the money of the whole for a spoiled few. That is not art. Its play.

art collegia delenda est

[TheWayItIs]

Sorry, Donald, but whether you like it or not, Downtown LA to Santa Monica is the only part of Los Angeles that really matters, as far as determining and setting culture in Los Angeles. If LA were NY, then LACMA's location would be midtown Manhattan, like where MoMA is in NY. While Queens might be the most central part of NY's boroughs, no one will argue that Manhattan, from Wall Street to Harlem, is really the only area that truly matters.

Downtown LA, in my view, is on the furthest edge of LA, and not easily accessible, or desirable, to the westsiders who set the trends, pay the money, and fund the programs.

Other than that, I agree with your rants against most contemporary art. My soul has gotten much more nutrition from the Norton Simon Museum than anything MoCA has ever done.

[Donald Frazell]

Until art grows up adn matures again, and DOES incroporate more than jsut the "trendies", it will remain ineffectual, sterile, and impotent. Art is about the highets common denominator of all mankind, how we view and understand nature, and our relationship withgod, whatever that means to you

Until art starts dealing with teh big topics, the true needs and hopes of mankind, it will remain a plaything for a susect of society, the spoiled and arrogant. I work in WLA, have lived there, and it is no better or worse than anywhere else, jsut ahs better paying jobs. So has the sponsor of art, thsoe who ahve raped the land and caused this depression. Forget them, forget career, and go for what truly is. What matters, not this trivial pusuit of academic projects.

Art can be made anywhere, and usuall true artists do no live in areas like WLA, hell, very few actors wortha damn do, they all get away fromt eh machine, artist ahve also, unless they work on public projects, as artists did before the ninetenth century. Now they jsut do silly school installations and such that are master thesis nonsense, with no relation to anything but teacerhs pet projects. Eveer see "Art School Confidential"? Even Hollywood makes fun of artises, John Malkevichc probably was one. And laughed his ass off ever since.

art collegia delenda est