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In the following weeks, the Mayor's Museum Advisory Committee was organized. Weisman's brother, Norton Simon, had stepped in to bail out the financially ailing Pasadena Art Museum in 1975, but was unable to retain its focus on modern art. Throughout the evening, Weisman passionately discussed the city's need for a contemporary art museum. In a 1979 political fund raising event at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Councilman Joel Wachs, and local philanthropist Marcia Simon Weisman happened to be seated at the same table. Since the museum's inception, MOCA's programming has been defined by its multi-disciplinary approach to contemporary art. The museum's exhibits consist primarily of American and European contemporary art created after 1940. Between 20, it operated a satellite facility at the Pacific Design Center facility in West Hollywood. MOCA's original space, initially intended as a "temporary" exhibit space while the main facility was built, is now known as the Geffen Contemporary, in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles ( MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. But Catherine Opie, who was on the museum’s search committee, said of Biesenbach: ‘He comes to MOCA with a level of mutual trust with artists that is crucial for everything this museum does today, and that we hope it will be able to do in the future.’ Biesenbach’s start date at the museum has yet to be confirmed.Los Angeles, California 90012 (United States)ģ4☀3′12″N 118☁5′03″W / 34.05333°N 118.25083°W / 34.05333 -118.25083 Coordinates: 34☀3′12″N 118☁5′03″W / 34.05333°N 118.25083°W / 34.05333 -118.25083 Another enters,’ critic Jerry Saltz tweeted. Some commentators have criticized the appointment of Biesenbach on social media. Two months later, it was announced that Vergne was out – with the museum and director deciding ‘by mutual agreement’ for the contract not to be renewed in March 2019. And in March, the museum made the headlines again after Vergne fired chief curator Helen Molesworth – it was reported that the two had clashed over MOCA’s artistic direction. In February, Mark Grotjahn refused the museum’s 2018 gala award, pointing to a lack of diversity among past laureates. The past year has been particularly difficult for MOCA LA. Philippe Vergne was named director in 2014. The directorship of Jeffrey Deitch (2010–13), during which chief curator Paul Schimmel departed, was criticized for its ‘celebrity-driven’ programming. MOCA LA limped through the financial crisis in 2008, after a USD$30 million bailout from philanthropist Eli Broad, and has since gone through a rapid succession of directors. Meanwhile, Biesenbach is heading to an arts institution which has also had its share of troubles.
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Last month, curator Nikki Columbus claimed that MoMA PS1 had retracted a job offer as their curator of performance after learning that she had recently given birth. Prior to MoMA, Biesenbach founded Berlin’s Kunst-Werke Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Berlin Biennale in the early 1990s.īiesenbach departs an institution embroiled in a #MeToo-inspired lawsuit. Exhibitions curated by him at MoMA include the populist 2010 Marina Abramović retrospective ‘The Artist Is Present’, as well as the much-criticized ‘Björk’ show in 2015, as well as a Kraftwerk retrospective in 2012.
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‘It is humbling to be invited to lead a museum that has already achieved so much, and that in so many ways represents the highest aspirations of contemporary art,’ Biesenbach commented.Ĭo-chairs of the MOCA LA board, Maurice Marciano and Lilly Tartikoff Karatz, praised Biesenbach as ‘one of the world’s most knowledgeable, wide-ranging, and innovative museum executives of contemporary art.’ Biesenbach was reportedly unanimously appointed from a shortlist of 40 candidates.īiesenbach has been with PS1 since 1995. German-born curator Klaus Biesenbach, currently director of New York’s MoMA PS1 and chief curator at large at the Museum of Modern Art, has been named the new director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Courtesy: MOCA, Los Angeles photograph: Casey Kelbaugh