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Ukrainian billionaire philanthropist appointed new MOCA trustee
The Museum of Contemporary Art is making strides to improve its ledger and strengthen its administration. The Los Angeles museum announced today it’s added three trustees to its board, including a jet-setting Ukrainian industrialist.
New trustee Victor Pinchuck has been collecting art for five years but he’s been making money for decades. Nearly 20 years ago, the 48 year-old billionaire founded an engineering firm that supplied steel pipes for Eastern European gas and oil companies.
He’s donated a lot of that money. A politician in Ukraine told Bloomberg.com Pinchuck’s made art fashionable in the former Soviet republic. He attracted art world attention this year by announcing a $100,000 prize to be given next year to one artist under 35 years-old from anywhere in the world.
Pinchuk’s art collection includes work by Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons. So does MOCA's collection. He’s perhaps the most colorful of MOCA’s recent appointees to its 40-member board of trustees.
The museum also added Peter Brant, the producer of artist biopics about Jean Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock. He’s also the owner and publisher of Art in America magazine.