Although he is best known as UCLA’s chancellor emeritus and most recently served as a guest professor in the political science department last quarter, Charles E. Young has taken on another equally unique position in the L.A. community, this time as the first chief executive of the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The move comes almost two months after the Los Angeles Times first announced major financial troubles ahead for MOCA.
The Times reported in mid-December that within the past decade, MOCA had spent all of its $20 million in unrestricted funds and borrowed $7.5 million to cover the museum’s operating expenses.
Those within and beyond the art community were shocked by the prominent museum’s financial issues.
MOCA was offered two options to save the museum from bankruptcy.
The first was to accept a $30-million bailout from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation of UCLA’s Broad Art Center. The second was to merge with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and show MOCA’s exhibitions in the Broad Contemporary Art Museum.
Either way, billionaire and philanthropist Eli Broad looked to play an important hand in MOCA’s future. His offer would continue to pay $15 million for five years of MOCA’s operations.
On Dec. 23, the board officially accepted Eli Broad’s $30-million offer and appointed Young as the museum’s CEO.
It was Eli Broad, after having served on the board of the UCLA Hammer Museum while Young was chancellor, who suggested Young’s appointment.
One of the many tasks Young now faces will involve restoring the museum’s depleted endowment. Young said he will need to significantly cut back on expenditures, but will strive to do so without hurting the quality of the museum’s programs. Young’s agenda also includes finding a better way of showing the museum’s permanent collection and restoring the public’s confidence in the museum.
Many in the art community, however, are still fearful about what the future will hold for MOCA. Artist Diana Thater, co-leader of MOCA Mobilization with artist Cindy Bernard, is skeptical about the recently appointed cultural advisory committee, which will work in tandem with Young to assure the future success of the museum.
“This oversight committee has no artists on it. By the way, it has no women on it; it also has no one under 60 on it,” she said.
The MOCA Mobilization group first started three days after the Nov. 19 announcement concerning the landmark’s financial crisis. Bernard and Thater created a petition supporting the museum’s strength and autonomy, and with more than 3,000 signatures, presented the petition to the museum’s board of trustees. A rally of more than 450 people was later held at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary.
Both Thater and Bernard attended the press conference announcing MOCA’s acceptance of Eli Broad’s offer. Thater was concerned that crucial decisions would be made without the public’s knowledge.
“We were also there to remind them that artists are primary and that museums are secondary,” Thater said. “Without us, they are nothing. And I think we have to constantly remind them of that.”
UCLA modern and contemporary art history Professor George Baker, who spoke at the November rally, also stressed the importance of involving the interested public in future decisions made by MOCA.
“The institutions running the museum don’t reflect the constituency who are invested in using the museum. One of the problems with what’s happened with MOCA is a lack of transparency, in terms of the actual financial situation, the problems of the museum,” Baker said. “Even before the crisis at the museum became public, the lack of transparency became even that much more evident.”
Baker was also relieved that MOCA voted not to merge with LACMA. He noted that because LACMA is dedicated to the entire history of art, it therefore shares a different relationship with the culture of contemporary art, to which MOCA is dedicated.
Young realizes the unique contribution MOCA makes to the art world, and will take part in making adjustments to the exhibition schedule and plan.
“We may do a somewhat more limited program; we may eliminate some things that we think are important,” Young said. “We will try to operate on a more lean basis, as UCLA is having to do now and we had to do while I was chancellor on several occasions.”
Both Baker and Thater hope that the unparalleled curatorial staff, scholarly publications, as well as the quality of major survey shows MOCA has put on in the past, such as those on conceptual art, performance art and minimalism, will not change in the future.
Yet Baker questions how this could have happened in the first place, when Los Angeles is considered one of the most booming art capitals of the world.
Baker said that if MOCA were ever to lose its place, “It would be truly embarrassing for Los Angeles, and I hope the city would have to enter a kind of mode of reflection of what it’s not doing, what it’s doing wrong.”