The trouble at (not with) MOCA

By coincidence I'm in Los Angeles this morning: Good timing because the art world's two biggest stories are here. I'll tackle the MOCA issue in this post. The possible/future Beverly Hills Broad Art Museum will have to wait.

MOCA, arguably America's most important contemporary art museum, is in trouble, big trouble. To be clear: MOCA's financial problems were not caused by the global financial crisis; they are many years in the making. As recently as March I wrote in an LAT op-ed that MOCA's endowment was down to $20 million. Today's LAT hints that MOCA's endowment is a mere fraction of that, at least down a third, maybe down two-thirds. The LAT doesn't say how much cash MOCA has left, but MOCA admits that a merger with another institution is a possibility. That may indicate that the museum lacks the cash to make it through its fiscal year. [Photo]

So how did this happen? For years MOCA has been a powerhouse -- at least programmatically. In fact, MOCA may be the contemporary art museum most admired by other museums. Recently I asked the new head modern/contemporary curator at a major Eastern museum whose program he most wanted to emulate. Without needing to think about it, he pointed to MOCA and said that he admired the way the museum approaches contemporary art with the scholarly and art historical rigor with which other museums approach, say, 16th-century Italy. Since that conversation I've heard variations on that theme from several chief curators and museum directors.

But alas, financially MOCA has been a mess for almost a decade. The museum hasn't launched any kind of capital campaign in over ten years, nor has it undertaken an endowment-boosting expansion drive. (The one gap in MOCA's programming -- and its a big one -- has been a lack of space to install the museum's permanent collection. The museum has blueprints for how to expand gallery space in its Isozaki-designed downtown location, but it has never had the money to implement the plan.)

So what's the solution? Small ideas won't cut it. MOCA doesn't just need a cash infusion, it needs a nine-figure campaign that addresses both its space and endowment issues. That doesn't seem likely in this economic climate -- and it's extra-unlikely given how disengaged MOCA's board has been for the last half-decade. (Worse: Many board members have left for LACMA or the Hammer.)

What about a Getty bailout? There's no indication that's in the works, but MOCA director Jeremy Strick and Getty boss James Wood have a decades-long relationship going back to their days in St. Louis. That's enough to start the gossip mill, but so far it seems that's about all its worth.

The Getty factor is an important one: It's hard to imagine any MOCA bailout without a $20 million-plus infusion from either the Getty or former MOCA board chair Eli Broad, who for years now hasn't seemed terribly inclined in MOCA's direction. Any infusion would have to be married to a massive Southland-wide effort on MOCA's behalf. That would have to include fundraising assistance and pledges from the Getty and its many-tendriled board (which has regional influence and connections that MOCA's board can't come close to matching), from the city of Los Angeles and from MOCA's board. Given the economic climate, that would be the kind of Herculean effort of which MOCA seems utterly incapable. The big question in that scenario is how much do the Getty and Broad want to do? Or can they do?

And then there's the merger option. None of the merger options make immediate sense: The Hammer would sell another codex in order to get its hands on MOCA's collection. (We kid, we kid!) No doubt LACMA would love the trove too. However: Neither has the space to display MOCA's art and neither would seem to have any particular use for two downtown Los Angeles properties, especially considering the attendant operational costs.

Still merger ideas are clearly being discussed: The addition of MOCA's staff and collection would make the Hammer the top contemporary art museum in America and they'd make LACMA the most energetic, forward-thinking-and-programming encyclopedic museum in America. A merger would require substantial thought -- and fundraising -- by either museum.

In short, there appear to be no good options. This story is only just beginning.