[Reader-list] MOCA Collapse or Art World Bailout?

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

signs of financial meltdown contagion spreading to the artworld?

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-moca19-2008nov19,0,5520094.story


MOCA faces serious financial problems
By Mike Boehm
November 19, 2008
Los Angeles' prestigious but chronically underfunded Museum of
Contemporary Art has fallen into crisis. Museum Director Jeremy Strick
said MOCA is seeking large cash infusions from donors, and this week
he did not rule out the possibility of merging with another
institution or sharing its collection of almost 6,000 artworks.

Federal tax returns show that even before the current national crisis,
MOCA had been draining its reserves to pay operating expenses. In the
meantime, the museum's staff has grown.

Unlike the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is partly
controlled by the county, MOCA receives minimal government funding.
Its annual budget has grown to exceed $20 million, but it relies on
donors to pay about 80% of its expenses. When the gifts have fallen
short, as they have more often than not during Strick's nine-year
tenure, the museum has gone into its savings.

In recent years, the museum has averaged 250,000 visits annually to
view critically acclaimed exhibitions and a collection boasting works
by such post-World War II masters as Jackson Pollock, Robert
Rauschenberg and Mark Rothko.

By one important measure -- "unrestricted assets," money that can be
used for any purpose -- MOCA is in dire straits. Its federal tax
returns show that early in this decade the museum had spent all $20
million of its unrestricted funds to meet routine operating costs. By
mid-2007, it had borrowed an additional $7.5 million from "restricted"
accounts, even though those are designated by donors for specific
uses, such as education or buying art.

In an interview this week, Strick would not disclose more recent
financial figures. But he acknowledged that the national economic
crisis had further flattened the museum's cushion. MOCA's investment
portfolio was worth $20.4 million in mid-2007, down from $36.2 million
in mid-2000.

Most investment portfolios have lost significant value this fall.

However, the number of museum employees, including part-timers, has
risen from about 150 early in this decade to about 200 in recent
years. Strick said that was due to increased educational programs and
the addition of a curatorial department for architecture and design.

This month, in a bid to shave 10% off operating costs, the museum
announced a six-month closure of its Geffen Contemporary exhibition
space, which is leased from the city for $1 a year. So far there have
been no staff cuts as MOCA continues operating at the main Grand
Avenue museum, whose $23-million cost was paid by the developers of
the California Plaza in exchange for the right to use the rest of an
11-acre parcel of city redevelopment land.

Strick said MOCA must sharply accelerate its fundraising to ensure its
continuing health. The director planned to meet with MOCA's Board of
Trustees this afternoon to discuss a range of options. He said talks
were proceeding "with a number of potential partners about a variety
of arrangements," but he insisted that a dissolution or takeover of
MOCA by another institution was not an option.

"All the possibilities being explored involve MOCA retaining its
identity, continuing its program, expanding its collection," he said.
But he added: "I think it is time for this city to step forward and
offer the kind of financial support commensurate with the work being
done."

Eli Broad, L.A.'s preeminent arts patron, said Tuesday that he had had
"very preliminary discussions" with MOCA leaders about helping via his
Broad Art Foundation. "MOCA is very important to the city," he said.
"I hope they figure out a way to remain independent and continue their
important exhibition program, which has brought a lot of respect to
Los Angeles."

Last month Broad, who was also a key figure in launching MOCA as its
initial chairman from 1979 to 1984, approached the city of Beverly
Hills about his desire to build a new museum and foundation offices
there.

Since its inception, MOCA has grown to encompass three exhibition
spaces. The "Temporary Contemporary," later renamed the Geffen
Contemporary, opened in 1983 in a warehouse at the edge of Little
Tokyo that had been revamped by architect Frank Gehry. Three years
later, the museum's permanent home, designed by Japanese architect
Arata Isozaki, opened on Grand Avenue, where it is a mainstay of the
planned redesign of the area known as the Grand Avenue project. In
2000, MOCA acquired an exhibition space at the Pacific Design Center
in West Hollywood.

Before the national economic crisis hit, Strick said, MOCA was gearing
up gradually for its first major endowment campaign since the
mid-1990s, when it raised $25 million. Now, he said, there's no time
for that, and the focus is on "immediate issues and how to move ahead
in a very different world."

An irony of MOCA's plight is that, thanks to the appetite of wealthy
international collectors, the market value of its prime pieces has
soared. Corporations and individuals routinely sell sculptures and
paintings in an economic pinch, but a museum that did so would be
violating its reason for existing, which is keeping art in the public
domain. The codes of ethics of both the American Assn. of Museums and
the Assn. of Art Museum Directors, although not legally binding,
specify that the only acceptable reason for selling artworks from a
public collection is to raise money for buying other, presumably more
desirable, pieces.

Strick said it's not unusual for business-minded members of any museum
board to ask about selling art to relieve a cash crunch. But the
unchanging answer, he said, is that it can't be done because "our
mission is preserving and protecting this collection."

For Selma Holo, director of USC's Fisher Museum and the university's
International Museum Institute, troubles like MOCA's underscore how
cultural philanthropy in Los Angeles continues to lag.

Philanthropists in Chicago, San Francisco and Boston have "a clear
understanding" that the health of a city's museums reflects on the
state of the city as a whole, Holo said. But "L.A. still has a long
way to go" for a similar conviction to take hold among its economic
elite. What's needed is for art collectors to put "the sustainable
success of their museums before the ongoing development of their
personal collections."

Is MOCA's peril a decisive moment for L.A. art philanthropy?

"I don't know if we can say, 'Put up or shut up, now or never,' " Holo
said. "Maybe those were questions that had to be asked before the
financial crisis. It's a hard time to be making the ask."

Boehm is a Times staff writer.

mike.boehm at latimes.com