UPDATED: MOCA cuts staff and exhibitions to balance its 2009 budget

Leaders of L.A.’s financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art said Friday that they have crafted a balanced budget for the coming fiscal year — but only by sacrificing four planned exhibitions and 17 more jobs, including two of seven curators. They hope that a fall exhibition drawn solely from MOCA’s acclaimed collection of post-World War II art will be a blockbuster and signal that the museum’s turnaround from last year’s near-collapse is well underway.

“It’s a very gut-wrenching thing to go through all this ... but we think we’ve now gotten through a difficult time, and we are poised to shoot off full speed in the future,” said Charles E. Young, above, the former UCLA chancellor who became MOCA’s chief executive in December.

Young came on board after a tumultuous period in which the downtown museum’s deeply divided Board of Trustees considered merging with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art rather than take an up-by-the-bootstraps approach to restoring fiscal stability. MOCA had run consistent deficits since 2000, siphoning money from its endowment to maintain a highly respected exhibition program. Last fall’s global financial meltdown brought on MOCA’s moment of truth, as the endowment that totaled $38 million in 2000 tanked to a low of $5 million by year’s end.

(UPDATE: An earlier version of this story said that MOCA consistently ran budget deficits during the 1990s. The deficits have occurred since 2000.)

Eli Broad, L.A.’s leading arts philanthropist and one of MOCA’s founders, stepped in with a pledge of $15 million in operating support over five years, plus a dollar-for-dollar match, up to $15 million, of funds MOCA raises to replenish its endowment.

But two of Broad’s key conditions were setting a ceiling on spending and putting greater emphasis on showing MOCA’s own collection.

Among the canceled shows is an exhibition of work by Thom Mayne’s Santa Monica architectural firm Morphosis.

Employees have paid a price: In cutting its budget from $20 million to the coming year’s $15.5 million, MOCA has pared its staff from 159 positions at the start of this year to 119, only 61 of them full time. Brooke Hodge, curator of architecture and design, was laid off, along with an assistant curator. Senior staffers will have their pay cut at least 5%; others will have their hours or salaries reduced; and benefits are being cut for all employees. 

To balance the budget, Young said, MOCA expects to raise about $11 million in donations — on top of the $3 million Broad is giving annually for operations — with earnings from admissions and sales accounting for the rest. If projections hold, he said, the museum will take in $16.5 million, with the surplus being funneled back into the endowment.

The board is being rebuilt as well after absorbing nine resignations since September. MOCA announced two new trustees: investment executive Marc I. Stern, chairman of the board of Los Angeles Opera, and Carolyn Powers, who has been a supporter of the Music Center.

Young, 77, has already said he’ll step down by year’s end or mid-2010 at the latest, so the board is also faced with seeking and hiring a director to succeed Young and Jeremy Strick, who was ousted in December after a 10-year tenure, then quickly hired to lead the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.

By fall, MOCA’s leaders hope, the pain will have given way to the fizz of champagne: Broad said Friday that he and L.A. art collector Maria Bell will co-chair a Nov. 14 gala kicking off “Collection: The First 30 Years,” the first exhibition to offer a chronological showcase of the museum’s holdings, which number more than 6,000 works and feature pieces by a who’s who of contemporary art that includes Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney and Jackson Pollock.

The exhibition will initially take up all of MOCA’s main building on Grand Avenue near Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as much of the Geffen Contemporary, the cavernous converted warehouse in Little Tokyo that has been closed since January to save money.

Tom Unterman, co-chairman of MOCA’s board, said the cuts in staffing and exhibitions were approved unanimously at a meeting Thursday. Broad said he attended and saw “no contention, unlike the meetings late last year” when the trustees were riven over whether to punt by accepting LACMA’s merger offer, or stay in the game on their own. “People are sad they’re having to cut things. It’s no fun, but it’s the right thing to do."

--Mike Boehm 

Photo: MOCA Chief Executive Charles E. Young. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Donald Frazell]

I have been dying to see thier late modern stuff again for years, been all these absurd "conceptual" nonsense for over a decade, while their great collection gathered spiders, though I did hear they sold one pollock for expenses, would like to see a accounting of the panza collection. Fish business bee goin on grand for the entire life of the museum, artistes.

[_]

Of course the staffing cuts were approved by the board - they were approved by the board that got the museum in this trouble in the first place and is somehow still allowed to call the shots. This is the board that already tapped out the museum endowment and instead of doing their job by fundraising and making donations they cut staff and exhibitions. Are they really that disconnected to museum to think this is OK? If what MOCA does was really important to the board they would do everything to make sure the museum sustained no losses (staffing or exhibitions in particular). Those four exhibition that were eliminated were important exhibitions in line with the exhibitions MOCA has been know for doing.
I think it is very sad and insulting for Charles Young to be talking about celebrating in the same breath as announcing these cuts.

[Philip P]

MOCA is going to be Norton Simon II, isn't it?

[Donald Frazell]

What are you talking about? Those on the board ahd given much monies already, if only for social standing and pwoer in the artsy community. The point is to make the museum important enough to LA so it comes and supports it, instead of for a cult of artistes who think they know more than professionals in other fields, and just planet intelligent people. Unlike brainwashed artistes who dream of their personal grandeur.

I welcome Chancelor Young, perhaps he can bring the intelligence and knowledge of reality that Secretar of Defense Gate brought to the Dept after the madness of Rumsfeld. He has dealt with the real world, and done well. Management is key here, as well as vision for a Museum that addresses the needs of the people, for there is no art without that.

There were far too many people doing far too little. Too much thinking, not enough doing. They conceptualized their jobs into nothingness. They were just as fantasyland as the Bush Adminstration. One must ballance the budget. If they couldnt bring in any more monies, because no one cared, then they had to cut expenses. Simple math. And responsibility.

The Norton Simon is still the best museum in LA. I would welcome a similar vision that focuses on quality, over encylopedic presentation. While LACMA has made great recent strides, outside of the silliness of the Broad, it is hardly the Met. I hope Mr young can do this, starting with quality over gimmic. And thats their original base, the Panza collection, if it still exists. They sure shafted the Count, never give the man any credit at all. Artistes.

art collegia delenda est

[;)]

If you have been "dying to see the late modern stuff for years " you should pay a visit now as it is currently on view -as it was a year ago this time .

[Trish]

MoCA is presenting this as good news -- and it may be necessary -- but it is very sad that the staff is being cut so deeply. Losing Brooke Hodge is a blow, and the cancellation of the Morphosis show such a bad idea. Instead of the very blah Dan Graham show up now, MoCA could have done an exhibit on Thom Mayne -- who is an internationally prominent locally-based architect -- that would address its local, Los Angeles urban context -- and maybe get an audience of more than 12 people.

[=+=]

A contemporary art museum without architecture and design?
MOCA is over. I will not be renewing my membership.

[Lisa_LA]

It doesnt sound like MoCA has mended fences with old supporters (like Valentine) or developed new ones. All I hear about are endless "auctions" which is basically asking artists to donate works, not major new grants or donations. So they'll have years and years of vague "permanent collection" shows and gutted programs. Sad sad sad.

[Donald Frazell]

The late modern works filled the entire temporary contemporary when it was first shown. It has only been shown in tiny dribbles ever since, usually in the last main room with yards and yards of wasted space, when they could put far more int it. Good work doesnt need empty white walls to make it look precious and important, thats for contemporory stuff.

Count Panza got screwed by MoCA, they never even mention his name. Nor show his collection, lousy ingrates, They used it to fundraise, pretending they had a great base to grow off of, while it gets moldy and collects spiders in storage. What they stil have, heard they sold off at least one Pollock for parties and supposed maintenance costs, i would love to see audit of their works, though they have been so disorganized and amateurish since the beginning, it would be quite a job.

They did all this to gain legitmacy, but have squandered it ever since, being more and more inbred, silly contempt stuff that would only interest a brainwashed academic artiste who had been trained in Pavlovian ways to slobber over irrelevant "ideas". Now they are broke, too busy partying while Rome burned, and now have to pay the price. Let them become private, except for Broad with his nonsense. Someone who will build a collection with relevance to the community, and humanity. The Age of Excess and Meism is over. lets build a post Contemptorary museum, a slowly building of art that is about humanity, nature and god. Back to arts original function in culture, not a plaything for high society "elites".

art collegia delenda est

[Wichita]

MOCA's senior staff spent years lying to the board about the institution's financial situation. The trustees were happy to be lied to as long as they got to go to enough parties each year. Now even more drones have been fired and the people who caused the mess continue their reign of incompetence. How about NOT going on 'fundraising' trips to Italy and Switzerland? How about NOT spending a million dollars to throw Broad a party? Where the hell is the Attorney General's Investigation?