art philanthropy

Open Letter to MOCA Trustees: Write Checks. Many Zeros.

In an open letter to the board of trustees at Los Angeles's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times is hardly circumspect about his message: give money, and give a lot of it.

MOCA's endowment is rumored to have fallen a startling $40 million or so in the past several years, and the museum has publicly contemplated renting or even selling its significant collection of art, functioning merely as an exhibit space in the future.

It's also mentioned folding in to LACMA, making the city of LA -- population nearing 4 million -- a one-museum town (yes, the Getty is nearby, as is the Norton Simon, but neither of those specialize in contemporary art nor are they geographically LA proper).

Mr. Knight urges board members to gather together and "stay in that room until you have cobbled together at least $25 million." Interestingly, that was the amount Mercedes Bass gave to the Metropolitan Opera two years ago after it announced its own financial woes. "It's really the duty of a board member to support the institution in a time of need," she told The New York Times.

I'm sure Mr. Knight and art lovers everywhere hope MOCA's board will remember those words.

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Tags: art philanthropy, ArtPhilanthropy, mercedes bass, MercedesBass, moca

art philanthropy

Open Letter to MOCA Trustees: Write Checks. Many Zeros.

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