A couple of Los Angeles City Councilmembers say they want to see the ongoing attempt to resuscitate the financially ailing Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) include more efforts to engage the population of blue-collar, immigrant and elderly residents who live near the institution's main address on Bunker Hill and its Geffen Contemporary wing in the Little Tokyo district on Downtown's northeastern edge.
The request comes as civic officials have rallied to find new donors for MOCA as its annual budgets have gone red and its endowment has dipped from a high of $38 million a few years ago to less than $3 million at the end of 2008. A recent shakeup saw new leadership installed at the institution, and put the brakes on a plan to shift the institution out of its Downtown location through a merger with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art several miles to the west.
The more recent proposal to reach everyday folks to supplement denizens of the "art world" would rely on $2.8 million in funds generated by rents on the ground floor of the California Plaza on the 200 block of S. Grand Avenue, home to MOCA's main facility. The development received support from the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles (CRA/LA). The agency receives a portion of increases in property taxes that typically follow developments in its various project areas around the city. California Plaza is part of CRA/LA's Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project Area, and has been transformed over the past four decades into a gleaming commercial center with some of the largest skyscrapers in the city.
The proposal for using all or part of the $2.8 million for bolstering MOCA's efforts to connect with area residents comes from 9th District Los Angeles City Councilmember Jan Perry, whose district includes both of the MOCA facilities, and 13th District's Eric Garcetti, whose territory borders Downtown. Garcetti is also a non-voting member of MOCA's board of directors, a seat that is attached to his role as president of the 15-member City Council.
The proposal is currently in the bare-bones form of a motion recently passed recently by the full City Council. The motion calls for CRA/LA representatives to "report with recommendations for allocating" the $2.8 million.
The motion carried several conditions, including "new leadership at all critical levels" of MOCA; a renewed commitment by MOCA representatives to keep the institution's main facility at California Plaza; and a willingness by MOCA to accept funding from private individuals "to increase its sustainability."
All of those conditions appear to have been met or put in the works.
The motion by the two City Councilmembers made no specific mention of using any of the $2.8 million for programs intended to draw more visitors from nearby neighborhoods, although Perry gave some indication in a recent statement on the matter, saying that "MOCA has provided a link to the arts to diverse communities, and it is important that we maintain this connection for future generations of Angelenos to enjoy."
Garcetti helped broker recent discussions with a non-profit foundation run by billionaire Eli Broad, and just before Christmas the Wall Street Journal reported that the councilmember would consider efforts to use the $2.8 million in CRA/LA funds to "try, among other things, to draw more visitors from the immediate area, one of the poorest in the city."
Garcetti confirmed the general theme in a later interview with the Garment & Citizen, calling for efforts to draw visitors to MOCA "who have never interacted with art in the visceral, provocative way that contemporary art can serve."
Garcetti said MOCA holds the potential to "set in motion a civic dialogue that's been lacking in Los Angeles," adding that that he hopes to see a variety of programs focused on linking the museum to local schools, senior citizen's centers, and everyday working folks by offering programs that they can readily attend.
"We should be reaching out to ethnic groups that often aren't seen in MOCA," Garcetti said. "Many of the immigrants who live nearby, and the senior populations in Chinatown and Little Tokyo, for example."
Garcetti also said he also would like to see more grassroots fundraising to support the museum.
"We don't have a lot of Eli Broads in Echo Park or Chinatown or Pico-Union, but we do have a lot of people who might want to give smaller amounts," he said. "We should see this as seed money — a catalyst for MOCA to reach a broader financial and social base."
The call for improvements to fundraising fits with the overall rescue plan for MOCA. Now Perry and Garcetti will have to guide their plans for the $2.8 million in CRA/LA funding through the City Council, starting with upcoming hearings in the legislative body's Arts, Parks, Health & Aging Committee and its Housing, Community & Economic Development panel.
Link:
MOCA The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Garment & Citizen staff report.
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