The future (yay) of MOCA: Q&A with Paul Schimmel

Last fall MOCA, the best contemporary art museum in America, almost died. Anyone reading this blog is plenty familiar with the back-story, so I won't recount it here.

Most of the MOCA-is-saved stories in the Los Angeles Times have focused on the new CEO, Charles Young, administrative cutbacks at the museum, and mass departures from the museum's board. That's all important stuff, but I was wondering how the art side of MOCA will change, evolve and, well, happen going forward. I called MOCA's chief curator Paul Schimmel -- MOCA's top art guy -- to ask him to detail the museum's plans.

Over the next couple days I'll share my conversation with Schimmel, who will reveal for the first time the 'new MOCA's' plans for its galleries, its collection, its exhibition program and so forth. [Part two. Part three.]

Schimmel started our chat by going out of his way to thank the artists and journalists who advocated for MOCA back during the toughest days. Schimmel doesn't name LAT art critic Christopher Knight... but go ahead and read Knight into Schimmel's comments on critics who motivate events. [Image: Andy Warhol, Telephone, 1961, from MOCA's collection.]

MAN: After late last year, I'm just glad we're talking about MOCA. So, let's see, where to begin...

Paul Schimmel: I'm very happy that we're going to talk about the programmatic future which is obviously the heart and soul and the backbone of the institution. But first I want you to know and that members of the quote 'elite art press' made an extraordinary contribution to MOCA in the fall. And I am certain that as much as the Broad Art Foundation's gift, which was more than matched by the MOCA board -- and I should say very often by the same people who have given extraordinarily over the last 10, 20, even 30 years, that is, the same core group really, really stepped up -- it mattered. [Image: Mark Rothko, No. 61 (Rust and Blue) [Brown Blue, Brown on Blue], 1953, from MOCA's collection.]

I think that the third leg of all this was that the newspapers, the blogs, the really elite art critics saved MOCA. You all advocated in a way that was very forceful and you spoke with such knowledge and vigor about the museum's programming and collection. I'm certain that if given the times we were going through and the times we are in now, that had there not been a real public outcry among artists and activists, I'm not sure anyone would have felt this groundswell to do something that's very very difficult to do. After all, to restructure a not-for-profit at this moment in time is a challenge.

I think sometimes critics don't think they have the kind of impact that people from another era did. I think whether it's Hilton Kramer or Clement Greenberg... there aren't a lot of people who can motivate events. But a handful of people and their influence within the broader media have broader implications, and that made a difference for us. I was kind of amazed how passionate, how thorough, and how dedicated the coverage was.

MAN: So how will the 'new' MOCA be different from the 'old' one?

PS: I think from a standard of quality - originality, focus -- the new MOCA will be very much the same. MOCA is curatorially-driven, and when I start outlining who's doing what, you'll see much of the new MOCA is things that have been in the works for two, three, four, five years.

Now, how it looks and the distribution of real estate and space is going to change: The economic stability provided by these new commitments we have received will allow us to re-open the Geffen Contemporary in a consistent and permanent fashion. As you know, as everyone knows, that has been the major reason that the museum has not shown its collection with as great a consistency as it did in the '90s. Every time you close down the Geffen the commitment to artists and exhibitions literally move - we've done this on several occasions - you literally move the entire program from one building to another, displacing the consistent and longer-term permanent collection exhibits. [Image: Ed Ruscha, Nothing Landscape, 1987, from MOCA's collection.]

The last time we had a multi-year permanent collection exhibition was in the late '90s. It was up for several years. Once you start shutting down spaces it's very hard to get them back online. The biggest change, I think, is that two-thirds of the Grand Avenue facility will be devoted to the collection, as will one-third of the Geffen. Between those two spaces close to half of MOCA's exhibition space will be feature a fixed and I would say semi-fixed permanent collection display, respectively. Now is that something that's never happened before? No. But we believe that we now have a consistency of funding that will allow us to operate both facilities.

MAN: So in terms of collection display, what will you show where?

PS: First, at Grand Ave. I'm going to focus on the works in the '40s beginning with our great abstract expressionism collection and going through pop art, '60s minimalist painting, and so on. [Image: Frank Stella, Ctesiphon I, 1968, from MOCA's collection.]

Then at the Geffen: On the 'right-hand side,' which is the smaller of the two buildings, that is, the facility where the glass doors are - a lot of work has been done on that building. Of the two buildings that is the most controllable [in terms of temperature and humidity]. I'll probably begin there with conceptual art, and then move forward into the present in. It's a natural break at that point, so the pieces that are the most delicate will be in the Isozaki building on Grand Ave.

As you'd imagine, by having the work of the '70s going forward in the Geffen there will also be in the work of the last 20 years in more regular and frequent rotation. That might even include sections being re-worked on a regular basis and small drop-in shows that are drawn from the collection but that have specifically to do with some aspect or focus of a certain part of contemporary art. That's also easier to do over there.

Continued tomorrow: Part two. Part three.