The Pasadena Museum of California Art, that Modernist beacon that has swooped above East Union Street since 2002, will close its doors at the end of the current exhibition, Executive Director Susana Smith Bautista tells me.
As with any museum going under, it’s not the physical plant’s closing that’s the problem for the cultural community — though I happen to love the Dutch-austere and yet somehow festive MDA Johnson Favaro architecture — swirls amid its hard corners — with the best roof-terrace view in downtown Pasadena. My God but there have been some good nights up there — music and poetry and painting and endless conversation — enough to make a fellow feel urban, even urbane.
No, it’s the extraordinary depth and breadth of the entirely catholic and wildly eclectic exhibitions that have filled the place for the last 16 years that are going to be missed in the future. The museum occupies an unusual place in these parts — nowhere else focuses solely on the artistic cultures of our state, from indigenous peoples to today. From the Eucalyptus School to Diebenkorn to the extraordinary just-opened “Judy Chicago’s Birth Project: Born Again” by the most important feminist artist of our time.
This move marks a lousy moment for the culture in Southern California. Museums are always in turmoil. For those of us who love them but don’t have to run them, it’s forever like following a soap opera plot.
But before I go into the weeds of what the problem is for the PMCA, let me say that I see this as an opportunity for some other cultural institution or philanthropic person to make this right.
For all of the vaunted personnel problems at the top of MOCA, for instance, or the architectural controversy at LACMA, those are the problems of success: on the one hand a toppling patriarchy, on the other immense popularity and the need to expand. There has never been a better time to be a Southland museum. Visitors foreign and domestic are pounding down the doors. Here: The Huntington, the Norton Simon, the Armory, the USC Pacific Asia — each one never stronger or more wildly popular with gallery goers. The Hammer, the Geffen Contemporary, the museum-level private Hauser & Wirth in the Arts District, the also oddball private Marciano Art Foundation on Wilshire, and that endless wonder, like a generous billionaire pal, the Getty — along with a dozen others — museum success begats museum success.
So what’s with this PMCA move? I’ve always known, and reported, that the museum building is in an unusual fiscal situation. Founders Arlene and Bob Oltman, great Pasadena philanthropists, actually live above the museum on its penthouse floor. This complicates the nonprofit status of the exhibition space, though it is very much a 501(C)3. But foundation underwriting gets skittish about big gifts.
And so fundraising hasn’t been what it might be.
Here’s the official word from Smith Bautista, who grew up here, attending Westridge School, before coming back after grad school to run the PMCA. I talked with her early Tuesday morning:
“At the June 13 museum board meeting, the board chair (Pasadena architect Jim Crawford) recommended closing the museum after the current exhibit’s end. There was a quorum, but four board members were not in attendance, and I felt very strongly that the four others needed to vote. So there was a call for a vote by email and by Monday night 11 of the 13 voted with a majority in favor of closing. So as it stands now the PMCA will close at the end of the Judy Chicago show on Oct. 7.”
Smith Bautista was set to tell her staff of eight full-time PMCAers late that morning.
I asked her precisely what the problem was — presumably financial — and she said she wasn’t able to give details right now, although she was clearly upset, and worried about recently hired staffers. So I spun it to the future, a reprieve of some kind, noting how USC had recently rescued the neighboring Pacific Asia.
“I would be happy to stay,” Smith Bautista said. “I am an eternal optimist. But a lot of changes would have to be made — changes the board has been discussing since a March retreat. We have great consultants and good strategic plans. But the board quickly realized it has … other issues to deal with. The PMCA I’ve known about since it started is amazing. Such fine contemporary architecture, such a clear mission about visual art and design in the state, the comfort of going from plein air to Judy Chicago — who had her studio in Pasadena — we are an amazing slice of California. I’m a California girl. I’m always so proud so proud to be showing this.”
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com
