The MOCA Suspense Is Unbearable...

If you've been following the drama, you've seen the LAT article about the offer of a merger with LACMA, under its current leadership. If you read it carefully, basically what it does is accepting the collection in exchange for ... only shouldering the operating expenses. It doesn't haul MOCA out of the hole it dug itself in, so financially it's not the best solution.
Basically what it's saying is, if you guys have to declare bankruptcy, we'll make sure you fab' collection stays in LA, we'll help you run your day-to-day operations, while maintaining the pretense of independence for your institution.
I can see many reasons why this wouldn't work (deciding which exhibition gets staged where, dealing with an over-inflated curatorial team in the Contemporary Art Dept. as well as the cultural shock for MOCA staff when dealing with LACMA's bureaucracy. As well as the impracticality for LACMA of running a satellite operation with 2 distant buildings, and how it would tilt its operating budget away from the "encyclopedic" premises the museum has been founded upon.
Nevertheless, given how MOCA's Board has run itself so far, they may choose it. I still think they'd be better inspired by accepting Eli Broad's offer, but we can now only wait and see... Stay tuned, and let's cross fingers!

UPDATE: there's no update, except that Michael Govan (hi Michael!) expands a tiny bit (not really) on the merger proposal, and that at almost 6PM tonight there is no leak yet or press release about MOCA's Board meeting. No doubt we'll know more later (this is the emptiest filler I've ever written, how more obvious a sentence can be, tell me?). Meanwhile, the LACMA offer looks more like a PR move than anything else, so far. They've been approached, they had to say something about it, so they adopted the stance that would offer as much help as they can, within their means. Whichever way you look, they could only do so: if they refuse the merger they appear like cold-hearted selfish beasts, and if they swallow MOCA they seem greedy and opportunistic. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
In any case, we'll see.

It's Seasonal Museum Directors Swap!

UPDATE!!!!! I posted this on April 1st, thinking everybody would see the joke...But no! I got some emails commenting on the post, etc. So it worked and I had my fun, but to answer some email questions I have received: I haven't the foggiest idea what Michael Govan is up to!
This being said, pre-April Fools Day this item was published... I saw it after posting mine.



Every 2 years at the same period, there seems to be some new rumors about museum directors leaving, arriving, "being resigned" and so forth. It's so ritual it is starting to look like a Pagan renewal rite. Gossip goes exponential, rumors fly, stuff is being whispered, hopes rise and expectations are being crushed. Earlier this year we heard about Philippe de Montebello retiring from the Met (my money is on Neil McGregor), there's been the swap at the Walker, etc, etc. You'd think in LA we would be safe, since we've underwent that directors dance not so long ago.
So I was flabbergasted this weekend when I heard rumors that LACMA's director was starting to get tired of itt all. What??? The guy's only been here 2 years, got the most massive media exposure this side of Britney Spears and already wants to leave? I found it hard to believe (and still do, frankly), but my dinner companions seemed to have it on high authority. No names were given (actually they were, but I was to far from the people talking to really make sense of what I was hearing), but it apparently went that way: one local gallery owner got it at the Whitney Biennial opening from one of his NYC collector who himself heard it from one of the museum trustees.
It seems Govan is disillusioned with the dearth of generous benefactors and donors in Los Angeles, and the very low level of fundraising possible here. In addition the sartorial provincialism of the trustees is kind of grinding, and he finds it hard at the museum galas when he stands out in his Dior Homme suits and cowboy boots among the tuxedo-clads penguins (just kidding, that one I just made up!).

But seriously he's been really impaired in his quest to redo the entire LACMA campus by his inability to raise money locally. Like, the Wunderkind has lost his mojo, once transplanted in the LA desert. So the word is he's gonna try to drag it for another year and see if he can get some Back East Serious Money to invest in Poor Auntie Fairfax-Wilshire. The plan is to have some serious party here in February when they freeze their asses on 5th Avenue, show them the potential to have their very own buildings (Your Name Here!) under the palm trees (hey, much better than dedicate MoMA's men's restrooms!), entertain them at some Oscar party with some C-celebrities in attendance, and if all of this fails, then he will go back to NYC where at least donors know who Jeff Wall is and that "dialectics" is not a dirty word.
The lack-of-fundraising opportunities doesn't surprise me, nor the homesickness (at least in NYC there's no earthquakes, fires, mudslides, and you don't spend 5 hours a day stuck in traffic). But the calling it quits so early, I find it weird, and I voiced my puzzlement in between the weak jokes (such as "well, he was really hoping to move in a Neutra or even a Koenig house, but all he got was a mock-Tudor").
To which one side of the table answered something along the lines of " well, now that Thomas Krens is stepping aside, there's a golden opportunity to lead a museum in need of a major rejuvenation, housed in a 20th Century's architectural landmark. And Govan really digs modern architecture".
Ah. Not unrealistic, if still surprising.
Anyway, I'm awaiting developments, as I still find it very hard to believe. Stay tuned!


Photo courtesy of Donna Grayson.