One of the great American songs about trying to bear up under hard times is Merle Haggard's forlorn "If We Make It Through December." The Museum of Contemporary Art nearly didn't: Its fractious board of trustees spent the final six weeks of 2008 trying to agree on an emergency plan to escape impending fiscal disaster.
Now, Charles E. Young, the former UCLA chancellor who signed on in late December to help rebuild confidence at the shaken institution while carrying out a financial retrofit, is singing a variation on Haggard's refrain. When it makes it to November, he says, the downtown L.A. museum will throw a celebration to "make it clear that MOCA is back."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, May 08, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 60 words Type of Material: Correction
MOCA finances: An article in today's Calendar section on MOCA's finances says that a curator had been laid off in January as part of a staff reduction. Museum officials say no curatorial job was cut. The museum also said the layoffs reduced its staff from 159 to 125 rather than from 152 to 108, as is stated in the article.
In the near term, the pain continues. Young said the Geffen Contemporary, the 55,000-square-foot converted warehouse closed since January to save money, could open in time for the celebration, but more likely it will remain closed until February. That leaves MOCA with a diminished exhibition schedule, limited to its 28,500-square-foot headquarters on Grand Avenue near Disney Concert Hall, and its small satellite gallery at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.
Also, there will be another round of layoffs, deepening the cuts Young instituted in January when he pared the staff from 152 to 108 full- and part-time employees -- including the loss of a curator.
But the belt-tightening should lead to a solid MOCA, Young said.
With a planned Nov. 14 celebration and a fanfare proclaiming a "MOCA renaissance," he said, the museum will open a new exhibition of its permanent collection and, he hopes, announce "a number of very substantial" new donations of art. "We've made it a big date for us, and we've got to do something to justify that.
"At that time, hopefully, we'll be able to say MOCA has gotten through its problems. . . . MOCA is back full bore," Young said during a wide-ranging discussion with The Times' arts staff Wednesday afternoon.
Young became MOCA's chief executive at the behest of Eli Broad, the philanthropist who is underwriting MOCA's $30-million bailout, which the board implemented rather than accept a competing merger offer from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He did not specify how many more jobs must be sacrificed to produce a balanced budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Reductions in pay and benefits are also under consideration.
