I’ve avoided writing about the MOCA fiasco until now, largely because I feel like the information space around it has been too vague from my limited vantage point. Being that I don’t hang with cocktail dressed museum trustees, that I don’t have the fly on the wall perspective of the many, many meetings going on around LA, inside and outside of MOCA, that I think we’d all like to have. Everything about the situation has emerged in trickles and drips, a blog post here, a leak there, an inside insight here, and it hasn’t been all that coherent. Add to the mess a pile of writers, critics, community members and bloggers getting their two cents in…
So anyways, I was writing my way through a half-rant, motivated by yesterdays’ shockingly ill-timed LACMA takeover bomb, my RSS reader filled up with a fresh off the keyboard post from Tyler Green on the debacle, that really says things far better than I could. Although I’ve disagreed with some of Tyler Green’s takes on the MOCA situation as it has developed, his assessment that adults need to stand up and do the adult thing right now is dead on.
Green’s post, Making sense of a total mess (or not) is a lengthy and detailed, opening with an absolute condemnnation of LACMA’s attempt to digest MOCA before it has even hit the ground, but this is the part that most needs to be echoed today. This is the point that everyone has been making, that it seems that the board and MOCA leadership want to ignore.
Just in case it needs be said again, the MOCA trustees are proving that they’re the worst art museum board in America. (And yes, there’s plenty of competition for that title these days. At ‘best,’ MOCA’s bunch is tied with the National Academy of Design.) The idiocy of this cannot be overstated: The MOCA board is apparently more willing to inflict upon itself an embarrassing public failure than it is to admit it needs help. Is there a 12-step program for non-profit mismanagement?
The solution to the museum’s mess is simple: Write checks, the checks you have failed to write for half a decade. Some of you should resign, including board chair Tom Unterman, who does not understand trusteeship. Accept Eli Broad’s donation. Pledge to work with the future Broad Art Museum the same way you’d work with the MCASD or SFMOMA or MoMA. Work out a deal with the county whereby the county gives MOCA at least $1M/year, a sum that would cover MOCA’s education program. Rebuild the board. Rebuild a community’s trust.
MOCA’s board met yesterday, and nothing of substance has emerged. No checks were written, no one quit or resigned, all of which should be the first steps in this process. LACMA’s takeover offer was local TV news last night – it’s not just highbrow art folks in LA who are concerned about this issue anymore. This mess has the stink of an out of control banking scandal right now – and I think we’ve had enough of that childishness lately.
Technorati Tags: MOCA, Tyler Green, LACMA, MOCA trustees
Seriously, don’t start me on LACMA.
Please start.
Okay, you asked for it. Why is an art institution, one that’s chronically crying about funding, donating huge sums of money to political campaigns like the 400K they put up for Measure R? Regardless of whether or not Measure R was a good idea shouldn’t those funds be supporting, oh, I don’t know, museum programs?
As for this, I can only call it seizure, of MOCA’s collection by LACMA, what happened to the MOCA board’s responsibility to their institution? Did they really think the Broad offer was a worse option?
I told you not to get me started.
I think LACMA’s contribution to Measure R (which is, in my opinion, an unbelievably important step towards a better city) has a lot to do with their angling to be a future Metro stop. LACMA owns other properties on Wilshire that many have speculated will be offered to the city as sites for the future “LACMA Metro stop”. LACMA, as an educational institution is aware (I’ve spoken with long-time folks in their education department about this very issue) that their Westside location makes their collection and programs (many of which are awesomely free) difficult to access for people in Central, East and South LA. So increasing the links and the convenience of those links, particularly to under-served communities, is important to their core mission to being accessible to the greater public.
I’ve never thought of LACMA as being much of a beggar. My mailbox (especially now that the financial sky has fallen and is lying in pieces on the floor) is flooded with letters from art organizations hammering me for money. As a LACMA member, I can’t recall getting anything other than the occasional year-end request. MOCA on the other hand…
MOCA’s board is off the rails. They’re afraid of Broad, because for all of Broad’s faults, he’s more responsible than they are, and will make them get out of the Disneyland they’ve been inhabiting for years. They’ve treated MOCA trusteeship as a playground for cocktail parties and hobnobbing with dealers and collectors, while ignoring the fact that their role is in fact a serious one, and that they do have to put in the effort (and money, big, big money) mandated by their position.
While I agree with you that the Wilshire corridor plan will be beneficial to LACMA, it bugs me to see them be political. Artists are political, art institutions should not be.
This really is LACMA coming in and taking over the collection of MOCA. It fills some holes for them nicely. For all the talk about joint institutions, that’s not going to be the reality. This isn’t a partnership, it’s a hostile takeover. MOCA is against the wall and they are taking the bailout from LACMA. Stupid- but that’s what they are doing.
Broad is a scary guy but at least he’s competent and I’d rather have a well run Broad center for comtemporary art than the wholly dysfuntionl mess that is MOCA. I suspect that the MOCA folks think that if Broad takes over they will lose control and be replaced but that won’t happen if LACMA takes over. In reality, LACMA will take over and they won’t be as secure as they hope, I believe. Of course, that’s a good thing since they are the worst museum board ever and have completely abandoned any notion of their trusteeship but I think we agree on that one.
Art institutions should be political when needed, but I do agree that the Measure R money seemed a little out of character and raises some questions about LACMA’s financial priorities.
Some folks seem to think that Broad is making a run on MOCA’s collection, but I think that’s a bit ridiculous. I think Broad is more legacy building than anything else. It’s gotta suck to be Broad, knowing that whenever financial volunteers are needed in Los Angeles, he’s the only one anyone seems to look to – I can only imagine the disdain he has for his financial peers who haven’t stepped up to the plate.
I have to agree with at- I think Broad is looking to his legacy. He put up the funding for UCLA’s new art building a few years back, Something no other LA philanthropist is stepping up to the plate to do. He has to be looking around saying “Hey guys, why is it just me out here?”
Personally, I’d love to see Hugh Hefner become a major donor. What’s more LA than Playboy? The nexus between art and pornography is certainly a legitimate curatorial question- how about a Hefner Gallery at MOCA?