Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

New Way-Out Idea To Save LA-MOCA

Is this the silly season or what?

A report on The New York Times website says that the National Gallery of Art is negotiating a deal to keep the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles out of the clutches of LACMA. It plans to give MOCA no money, but rather help with programming, research and exhibitions. And it adds:

“The goal at this point is stabilizing them and get them standing as an independent institution,” said John Wilmerding, chairman of the board of the National Gallery. “We’d like to see them survive and thrive, and if we can help them, that’s all we’re doing.”

Mr. Wilmerding said the billionaire Eli Broad, one of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s biggest financial supporters, had approached the National Gallery and asked for assistance. Dismissing rumors of any merger or formal partnership, Mr. Wilmerding said the discussions so far had focused almost solely on joint programming and exhibitions. The National Gallery is also offering help with research, curatorial decisions and staffing advice, if needed.

Previously, the Los Angeles Times had reported that the National Gallery, and MoMA, had been approached to help MOCA, but that both had declined.

Now, I love the National Gallery, but since when has it been known as a bastion of contemporary art? Yes, it might ground MOCA’s exhibitions in research, but it can’t provide the vision.

As I have said before, MOCA needs to get a new director, someone who knows the territory and has been a director before.

 

Way-Out Solution For LA-MOCA: Dump Deitch And Hire…

I’ve been thinking about the Museum of Contemporary Art’s struggles in Los Angeles since news broke in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that the LA County Museum of Art had essentially made a takeover bid for the troubled museum. In case you missed it:

…The acquisition offer was made in a letter from the leaders of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA, to the co-chairs of the MOCA board.

LACMA would preserve MOCA’s two downtown locations and operate them under the MOCA name. With money an obvious issue for MOCA’s future, the letter guaranteed that LACMA would raise $100 million for the combined museums as a condition of the deal.

“MOCA has a great brand, a great history and its art collection is known and loved internationally,” Michael Govan, LACMA’s executive director, said. “Combining the two museums would create one of the largest and most significant art museums in the U.S.”

It’s not a bad idea. Govan argues, in a post on LACMA’s website, that

Combining LACMA and MOCA would strengthen both. LACMA’s mission is to share world-class art with the widest array of audiences possible. MOCA’s downtown location, extraordinary collection and devoted constituency, combined with LACMA’s modern art masterpieces, large audiences and broad educational outreach (especially in schools near downtown L.A.) would create a cultural institution that is much more than the sum of its parts. LACMA’s strong leadership, its history of fundraising, and its support from Los Angeles County and other donors will provide MOCA with the stability it deserves.

It’s not the best solution, either. I’d rather have more, rather than fewer, views of contemporary art. I think Govan has plenty on his plate already without adding MOCA.

So how to preserve MOCA’s independence? First, Jeffrey Deitch has to go. Now. The museum cannot afford to lose any more people, and it must return to a respected exhibition program.

KoshalekThen, it needs a new director who, with the board, will be able  to stablize the museum. Someone who knows the lay of the land. Someone with directorial experience. Now, what experienced director would take this job? Only one: former MOCA director Richard Koshalek, now running the Hirshhorn Museum. Soon, Koshalek’s contract will expire, I understand. His dream of erecting an Inflatable Seasonal Structure at the Hirshhorn for programming and creating a culural think-tank, is all but dead. He has no reason to stay, ifhe;s asked, so he’ll be free to leave Washington.

But Koshalek, I’m guessing, is thinking about his legacy. He’s past 70. Although he had a troubled time as president of the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, when he left MOCA in 1999, after 20 years, it had a healthy endowment (about $50 million, I’m told), and was well-respected for its collections and its exhibitions. And his hires, including Paul Schimmel and Ann Goldstein.

Sure times have changed since  he left LA,  but his return to MOCA for the next couple of years might be just the way to stop the civil war at the museum, get it back on its feet, raise a substantial amount of money, take its time developing succession plans, etc.

Would Koshalek take it? I’m betting yes.

 

 

Worcester Art Museum — A Real Merger

While everyone is thinking about the possible merger between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, a real merger of museums was announced on Friday: the Worcester Art Museum and the Higgins Armory Museum.

St.GeorgeYou may know little about the Higgins, but it claims to be the only U.S. museum devoted solely to armor, with “4000 pieces in all, includ[ing] major examples of arms and armor from medieval and Renaissance Europe, Ancient Greece and Rome, Africa, the Middle East, India, and Japan.” It was founded by John Woodman Higgins, “a prominent Worcester industrialist during the early 1900s, [who] spent a lifetime building his collection. In 1929 he began construction of a five-story building to house it, and in 1931 the John Woodman Higgins Armory opened its doors to the public.”

Unfortunately, it was not earning its keep and the Higgins has been running a deficit. It chose at first to draw down money from its endowment, but that did not solve the problem. Trustees looked around and decided to talk to the Worcester Art Museum about transferring the collection to it. Discussions have been taking place for more than a year, the vote took place last fall. As a result, after the Higgins closes in December, most of its collections will move to the Worcester Art Museum. More details can be found here, on the Higgins’s website.

Higgins1580This makes perfect sense for Worcester, where director Matthias Waschek has been laboring hard to revive the museum, with some successes. Last year, he succcessfully raised money to reopen its historic entrance and provide free admission during the summer months. He recently hired a director of audience engagement (?) and won money from the Mellon Foundation to hire a curator of American art. However, a recent restructing of staff led to a layoff of six people — hard to tell from the outside whether those positions were needed, or not, but for the people involved, it was unhappy.

Waschek sees the Higgins collection as an opportunity to attract more families to the museum. The Higgins, according to the Boston Globe, actually attracted more visitors last year than Worcester — 60,000 versus 46,000 — largely because of the family interest.

I applaud the trustees of the Higgins for finding a viable solution that keeps its collection in the public domain, and transferring, too, the remaining endowment, which the Globe put at nearly $3 million. Let’s see what Waschek does with it — starting next year.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Higgins Armory Museum

Did Michael Govan Really Say This?

It was a typical museum director panel last week in Georgia, at the Savannah College of Art and Design’s deFINE Art conference. I wasn’t there, but thought I’d read the account of it on Hyperallergic, which carried the perfunctory headline, Museum as Tool: Directors on How They Run Their Art Institutions.

GovanThen, I read this: “Universal museums were the result of colonialism. The Metropolitan Museum’s narrative is false. It’s a creative act to assemble the narrative of the past.” [Boldface mine.]

Wow. It was attributed to Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The only context given was this:

Govan thinks of LACMA as a “civic museum,” an institution that “can impact a city.” He wants to adapt the form of the encyclopedic museum into a new era, emphasizing multiculturalism and forming a “contemporary point of view,” connecting with the city of Los Angeles. It’s a revision of the encyclopedic museum’s history.

Now, I have high respect for Govan — he’s a very sharp thinker and doer. And he’s not afraid to break a few eggs — this would not be the first time.

But seriously, false? All of it? I wonder what Tom Campbell has to say about that.

This has certainly been a wild week for museums.

*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met.

 

Leaderless In San Francisco, And The Ensuing Turmoil

It just keeps getting worse at the San Francisco Museums of Fine Arts. When the late director John Buchanan was alive (he died in December 2011), the museum fared well — by the numbers at least. He was somewhat controversial, having too much affinity for fashion and jewelry exhibitions, for example, and spending too freely, some people said. But he didn’t make a mess, there, as I recall.

LynnOrrNow there is a mess there — and people are wondering not only what’s up, but who’s in charge, and why — 14 months after Buchanan’s death — no director is in sight.

Last December, the museum terminated curator Lynn Orr, who specialized in European art, because of her performance; that followed the firing in November of the museum’s photographer Joe McDonald, who’d worked there for 27 years. Now, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the museum has dumped Bill White, the exhibition designer who has been there since 1977, and his assistant, Elizabeth Scott.

Orr’s case is amplified in this article:

“When I asked how my performance was deemed lacking, they refused to offer any specificity or further information,” Orr said in an e-mail.

“I have never received any indication of dissatisfaction with my performance, much less a degree of dissatisfaction that would warrant terminating me without any prior notice or even an explanation. The Museums’ refusal to provide any explanation or details, or even to give me an opportunity to respond, further confirm that my performance had nothing to do with the termination decision.”

She said, instead, that her behavior in support of union employees at the museum last fall during negotiations — she attended a rally but did not, as asked, carry a sign or speak out publicly — was the probable cause. She apparently alienated a trustee — or two. More juicy details at that link.

The last line of the story is important: it says the search to replace Buchanan continues.

I think these searches are getting ridiculously long. Why does it take more than a year to fill an executive position? A year is now the norm at art museums, and then there’s a lapse between appointment and taking the job. As a result museums are tossed around for, say, 18 months, leaderless. Can you imagine a company that would allow that?