Meltdown at MOCA
"Where is Strick?"
That was the question many of the 450 boisterous supporters of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) had on their minds on Sunday, November 23 when what was supposed to be a staid professorial lecture on "art conceptualism" at the Geffen Contemporary in Little Toyko instead erupted into a noisy expression of both support and frustration. People had just found out a few days earlier that the museum is nearly broke.
At the center of the controversy is MOCA General Director Jeremy Strick who, besides not showing up at the rally, is the focus of anger of many who believe he is the primary reason the museum teerers on the edge of ruin. Strick, brought to MOCA in 1999 from his position as curator of modern art at the Art Institute of Chicago is credited with the vast expansion of the now-celebrated MOCA collection. But now many local artists and collectors as well as both former and present board members are calling for his removal.
"I saw the train wreck coming," says Susan Nimoy, a collector, former MOCA trustee, and wife of actor Leonard Nimoy. "I think every one of those trustees should resign and Jeremy should resign."
For six of the past eight years, the museum has operated in the red while at the same time its investment portfolio has shrunk from $50 million to around $6 million according to unnamed inside sources. 2007 was the only year in the eight that Strick has been at the helm that the museum finished with a budget surplus, primarily as a result of profit taking on a portion of the investment portfolio. In every other year since 2000, the museum has drawn on its capital for operating cash, a double whammy in the current economy where investment assets are losing market value almost daily.
"The museum hasn’t launched any kind of capital campaign in over ten years, nor has it undertaken an endowment-boosting expansion drive," complains art critic Tyler Green.
Strick Responds
The same day, November 19, that Los Angeles Times writer Mike Boehm revealed MOCA’s operations had reached crisis stage, Director Strick responded with an email blast to museum donors filled with the grand language of arts fundraising, like ". . . remembering that the wonderful generosity of our closest friends and supporters has sustained the museum during difficult times."
In addition, the letter was full of standard pablum in praise of his institution’s vital role in the cultural life of the city and excuses for its unstellar economic performance. Laying blame on factors beyond his control, Strick wrote: "Cultural institutions have been affected directly by the volatility of the current economy, and MOCA has not been immune to its impact."
Unmentioned in Strick’s letter was the ballooning operating budget, now over $20 million a year, a budget which includes his breathtaking $468,000 salary and the paltry income from the sweetheart interest-only loan given him by the board in order to purchase a tony 6 bedroom, 4,500 square foot Westwood mansion. In 1999, the year Strick took over as director, MOCA’s operating expenses were half what they are today. Also left out of the letter were some of the more unsavory financial dealings of the museum, such as soliciting funds for an exhibition of works by Takashi Murakami from commercial galleries who stood to gain financially from the prestigious and well-publicized MOCA event.
In addition, there is growing concern over the Museum’s potentially fraudulent practice of raiding restricted funds to pay for general operating expenses, a practice that has caused the California Attorney General to commence an audit of the museum’s books and financial dealings.
Museum trusteeships, a celebrated position among American aristocrats which affords the wealthy both prestige and an outlet for public displays of patronage and charitable giving, number 40 individuals including life trustees such as financier/patron Eli Broad. Trustees have donated only $1 million in the past eight years beyond their required annual gifts, even though among their members are retired real estate magnate Fred Sands, Mrs. Jon Lovelace (Forbes estimate of family worth, 2006: $1.1 Billion), and Jeffrey Soros - nephew of George and wealthy in his own right.
