Moca

Re "Cross Cuba off the blacklist," Editorial, March 13 I toured Cuba last week as part of a college alumni educational exchange and saw firsthand the effects of the 50-plus-year-old U.S. embargo. Cuba is changing slowly, and it is time for the U.S. to reevaluate its hostility to this imperfect island nation. Cuba has made some egregious blunders, but our record is not spotless either. Carolyn A. Scheer Irvine ALSO: Letters: Prayer for the pope Letters: A stand-alone MOCA Letters: A taxing debate on gun control

Re "Art marriage may yield L.A. mega-museum," March 8 The great cities of the world have always been centers of culture as well as commerce. For Los Angeles to attain true greatness, it must support cultural institutions of excellence like the Museum of Contemporary Art. Yet despite its professed claims of international cultural prominence, Los Angeles has never given MOCA the support it deserves. Even as it fights for its very survival, MOCA has earned a worldwide reputation for excellence.

A proposed five-year collaboration deal between the troubled Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is, to use a critically astute technical term, a big, fat nothing-burger. The plan sidesteps the most pressing needs facing MOCA, which are financial health and managerial competence, while needlessly embarrassing both museums. It's a symptom of, not a solution to, MOCA's problems. PHOTOS: Arts and culture pictures by The Times A possible relationship between the two - located on opposite coasts and with vastly different missions, structures and reputations - had been talked about in museum circles for weeks.

Michael Govan came to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art seven years ago with a mission to make it one of the most prestigious institutions in the country, one worth mentioning alongside New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. Now he's trying to seize an opportunity to gain ground on them in a single stroke. Govan and LACMA's trustees have proposed a takeover of L.A.'s financially adrift Museum of Contemporary Art and its crown jewels: a 6,000-piece collection that's one of the world's most admired troves of post-World War II art. But Govan has an imposing rival in billionaire Eli Broad, L.A.'s eminence grise of art philanthropy.

The troubled Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is in talks for a possible partnership with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a development that could cloud MOCA's acquisition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The talks were initiated by billionaire Eli Broad, the MOCA board member and leading donor who opposed a 2008 attempt by the county museum to absorb MOCA. According to National Gallery board chairman John Wilmerding, the talks have focused on ways in which the federally funded museum might help MOCA create fresh exhibitions.

The troubled Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is in talks for a possible partnership with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, a development that could cloud MOCA's acquisition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The talks were initiated by billionaire Eli Broad, the MOCA board member and leading donor who opposed a 2008 attempt by the county museum to take over MOCA. According to National Gallery board Chairman John Wilmerding, the talks have focused on ways in which the federally funded museum in Washington, D.C. might help MOCA create fresh exhibitions.

Everybody loves a bargain. Here's a big one. If you were a wealthy major art collector, and for the price of one classic Jackson Pollock drip-painting or Andy Warhol's 1963 silk-screen "Eight Elvises" you could acquire a few billion dollars worth of art, including scores of incomparable and irreplaceable masterpieces, would you work to make the deal happen? Of course you would. And so would the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. GRAPHIC: LACMA and MOCA at a glance The county museum - LACMA - has offered to take over the Museum of Contemporary Art, rescuing the downtown museum from perennial money troubles.

MOCA has been known as "the artist's museum" since its founding in 1979 because of hands-on support from its creative community. So what do L.A. artists think about the news of a possible acquisition by LACMA, which would create a combined organization run by LACMA Director Michael Govan? Here are some early reactions. John Baldessari, a former MOCA trustee said: "LACMA is an encyclopedic museum, but they are weak when it comes to contemporary art, and this would make their holdings in contemporary art better than the Metropolitan [Museum of Art in New York]

Late in 2008, when the critically revered but financially teetering Museum of Contemporary Art was mulling rival rescue plans to pull it back from the brink of collapse, two issues were paramount. More than four years later, even as news breaks of yet more proposed solutions to MOCA's lingering distress, they still are. One issue was the need to vastly increase the museum's paltry endowment, which had never come close to being adequate for a 30-year-old institution whose ambitious mission -- and achievement -- was international leadership as "the defining museum of contemporary art. " The other was autonomy.