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LA's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) may be a casualty of the country's financial dire straits. In order to avoid this unfortunate fate, they are putting out the word that now is the time for action, not avoidance.
Is the solution to fold into the more established and stable LACMA, as some wonder? What else can be done? Although Eli Broad has offered to put up $30 million of his own, he reminds us all that Los Angeles "is not a one-philanthropist town. MOCA's needs are great and will require the financial assistance of numerous supporters."
To discuss the possibilities, MOCA is morphing a scheduled critical discussion tomorrow with UCLA art history professor George Baker into one focused on MOCA's current financial crisis. To hear and be heard, interested supporters of the arts in Los Angeles are encouraged to head to MOCA tomorrow afternoon for the 3 p.m. lecture at the Geffen Contemporary; entry to Baker's discussion is included with the (much-needed) price of museum admission.
If you can't make the meeting, but still want to be part of the fight to save MOCA, you can of course become a MOCA member, and you can also join the MOCA Mobilization Facebook group, which was created "to generate support for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles...disseminate information on the current financial crisis, discuss options and advocate for an autonomous MOCA if necessary."
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I saw this in yesterday's Times and thought it was pretty great: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-mocaletter20-2008nov20,0,5599508.story
The Failure of MoCA to serve the needs of Los Angelenos
MoCA does not represent the goals, aspirations, needs, or varied artistic creativity of Los Angeles. Contemporary art in general, has been about amusing and serving the desires of a tiny minority, the wealthy, and keeping art academies in business. It has no relevance to the life of Americans, and certainly not Los Angeles. No public funds should be used in any way. All efforts to keep the Museum financially stable, is completely on the audience it serves, the rich, and the Art Academies that rely on their patronization. If they cannot keep it afloat, it does not deserve to exist.
Privatizing the main site would be best, Museums such as the Norton Simon are of much higher quality, and involves far more and disparate peoples than MoCA ever has. The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach has far greater outreach, and relevance to the community it truly serves. Its finances are stable, and within reason, for public use, not private sources who use MoCA more for its own desires than the public good. Art has always been to define a community, who a people are, and their search for meaning in life, of god, and family. Contemporary art in general does none of this, being about self-expression, desires, and defining decadence in a Gilded Age of self-worship, which has now ended. The equivalent of the Academy of the nineteenth century, its day is over, if it ever truly had one.
The Modern Art of the Panza Collection should be sold to a modern museum, preferably the gallery at LACMA. They now have more than enough wall space, and need to upgrade a rather mediocre level of art. It could be kept, as the only truly valuable work in the Museum, being stolen fair and square. As Manhattan was for a few baubles, in the great American tradition of land deception and breaking of treaties. Or housed at the Geffen, and selling or renting the main site for another type of museum or other public usage. Selling the other works, whose prices have crashed forever, true worth now to be seen, could keep the Institution alive. And hopefully bring more of LA into it, looking for more and better art to inspire the imaginations and hearts of Los Angelenos, few of who know, or care, about the Contemporary, or its art.
But the desires of the few, no matter how well connected or financed, should not induce the City or County of Los Angeles into any deals. A reprioritizing of values is now underway, the new Administration holding out the promise of uniting us as a whole, being about We, rather than the Meism of Contemporary “Art”. Sacrifice is now called for, not to promote the few, but by the whole, for the whole, including the wealthy, who hold the resources of our age to an inordinate degree. There are far greater needs at stake, our children, our homes, our livelihoods. Our planet and basic human values, God and Nature, Art has not addressed these fundamental human needs for generations.
And until it does, should not be financed by public funds, through grants, incentives, deals, property or direct cash infusions. Let the market it serves determine the outcome.
Donald Frazell Internet Author Imperial Clothing
We're really excited at the prospect of so many people showing up to support MOCA!
However, the Geffen is not set up to handle a large discussions. It will not be a forum for asking questions of the Board or Staff or airing different proposals for MOCA's future. It is not a press conference and not a showdown. There will be a brief period for comments from attendees - if you choose to speak, please be concise and productive.
What is paramount is to remember that what we are doing today is showing our support for the museum and its staff in a time of crisis and demonstrating to the Board of Trustees that there is a public who is vigilant and cares about the future of MOCA.
MOCA Mobilization