MOCA Mobilization: 3,200 Signatories Oppose the Urge to Merge

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It's more than just a bake sale.

Some 3,200 MOCA-philes have signed a petition against the proposed merger with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The petition has been delivered by the grassroots group, MOCA Mobilization, to MOCA's board. This is the same group that held a rally at the museum's Geffen Contemporary building on Nov. 23, which was attended by prominent LA artists, as well as Paul Schimmel, MOCA's chief curator.

The museum's board meets again later today to ponder possible solutions to the institution's crisis of cash flow and confidence.

Here is the statement delivered to the board by MOCA Mobilization:

We support an independent and autonomous MOCA. We condemn any plan now or in the future to merge MOCA with any other institution. MOCA's artistic integrity and vitality, acknowledged locally and globally, can only be served by its existence as an independent museum, and not as a department or program at LACMA, whose mission as an encyclopedic museum must appropriately frame its numerous programs.

LACMA's press release of Dec. 16 states: "The goal of this plan would be to preserve the independence and integrity of both institutions while combining their operations and infrastructure." This is not a definition of "independence" that we accept.

We at MOCA Mobilization want the reality of independence---not the appearance of it. We demand that the MOCA Board of Trustees honor MOCA's local and international leadership in contemporary art by maintaining the museum's autonomy.
December 18, 2008 12:14 AM | |

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LEE ROSENBAUM I'm a veteran cultural journalist with many pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major art magazines. I have been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and have provided arts commentary on NPR and public radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I am a HuffPost Arts writer. I've been profiled on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer's Art Beat and in the Chicago Reader. I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at at Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Annual Meeting, Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and a conference of the Museum Association of New York, on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University, on arts blogging at American University and on Smithsonian exhibition controversies at Rutgers University.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on December 18, 2008 12:14 AM.

Raider of the Lost Museum: Takeover Bid by Govan for MOCA UPDATED was the previous entry in this blog.

MAD Deaccessions: 24 of 44 Lots Sold by Museum at Auction is the next entry in this blog.

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