Firstly, word on the street in L.A. is that MOCA is bleeding staff. People don’t want to work there, don’t like Deitch and are skipping out on valuable arts jobs in the middle of a recession. In the months since Deitch’s arrival around ten staff people have left, including a majority of the development staff.
Even the most cynical Deitch watchers only joked about the potential of Julian Schnabel, bad artist turned bad filmmaker having a larger role at MOCA than simply pissing into Dennis Hopper’s open casket with his lazy curatorial “efforts”.
But this is insane. Chris Knight over at the L.A. Times has the emerging details of Deitch’s statement that he’s “planning a retrospective of the work of artist Julian Schnabel to debut in about two years.” MOCA also makes mention of it on it’s own Twitter stream, so it must be for real.
My jaw is on the floor in disappointment. Deitch seems determined to make a joke out of MOCA, a museum that’s been accruing descriptors like “irrelevant” and “out of touch” like merit badges. What is he, some kind of Manhattanite saboteur sent by the Illuminati to poison on Los Angeles with the artistic equivalent of nuclear waste?
So not as to imply that MOCA is an absolutely sinking ship, I’d like to end this post with a shout out to the folks at MOCA who are keeping the museum relevant. The captain may be mad, but there are hard working, talented people at MOCA who have their hands in the rigging. Last night Engagement Party did its thing, bringing Ryan Heffington and his crew to perform Heavy Metal Parking Lot The Musical to a crowd of 2500. Enjoy the “teaser” video for last night’s action below and a pile of stills from Sharlene Durfy here. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if MOCA stopped showing anything but its permanent collection altogether and just poured every damn nickel into an ever expanding excess of Engagement Parties, until we’re all performance art-ed out and sugar high from chugging the biggest contemporary art Slurpee ever made.