For those who may have been dozing in a cave the past few months, the ongoing furor over the financial meltdown at MOCA, and what to do about is, has apparently been resolved. At least for the short term. An infusion of cash by Eli Broad to the tune of $30 million will save MOCA’s bacon and avoid the dreaded other possible compromise which would have merged MOCA with LACMA. Tarnished director Jeremy Strick has resigned, and a Broad cohort, Charles Young (who isn’t) will step into this role effective immediately.

It remains to be seen how MOCA will function now that its “spend the principal” approach to funding has been discredited. Investigations are also pending to determine if donations earmarked for art acquisitions or other specified uses were instead diverted to support ongoing operations. Not kosher. There are many factions, including artists, who are not enamoured of the deal. Stay tuned for more fun as further information on specifics of the “rescue” become available.

Details here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/arts/24moca.html?emc=eta1 for the NY Times version of events.

Tags: art acquisitions, Eli Broad, LACMA, MOCA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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