Museum Is Accused of Plan to Sell Art Works

Just weeks before the opening of its new building on Bunker Hill, the Museum of Contemporary Art is facing charges by Italian collector Count Guiseppi Panza di Buimo that it plans to sell off works from a stellar collection of 80 objects that it purchased from him last year for $11 million.

The collection, MOCA’s first major acquisition, is considered the cornerstone of the museum’s permanent holdings.

Museum officials denied Thursday that they plan to sell any part of the Panza collection, but they admitted the existence of a contingency plan to sell certain works if funds are not sufficient to complete the purchase by 1991.

Panza, reached by telephone in Milan, said the MOCA board had “adopted a resolution to sell works from the collection,” which includes unique groups of Abstract Expressionists and Pop Art objects by such American artists as Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg, as well as works by some lesser-known European artists.

Panza sold the works to MOCA with an agreement that they be paid for over six years without interest, but with what he said was a gentleman’s agreement that the collection be preserved intact.

“I made special conditions to the museum in order to have these beautiful works kept together,” Panza said. “Now they can sell them for $20 million and have $10 million profit.

“They (MOCA) are too ambitious,” he continued. “They have money. They have an $18-million endowment. . . . They are ambitious for stupid reasons. They want to do big expensive exhibitions when the proper mission of a museum is to preserve a beautiful permanent collection.”

According to museum Director Richard Koshalek, $6 million of the debt to Panza already has been paid, with the next installment due next June.

Transcripts of MOCA board meetings made available to The Times include entries stating that the acquisition and collection committee “work on the renegotiation of the Panza collection acquisition and payment schedule as its top priority.”

A later entry notes: “The committee is also investigating the de-accessioning of works from the permanent collection and Panza collection.” Other entries refer to a detailed list of works that might be sold to support a payment to Panza.

Morton Winston, who heads MOCA’s acquisitions committee, said the plan was simply a prudent, “alternative or contingency plan in case our capital campaign should falter. It is going extremely well but no one who lives on charitable donations can afford to ignore forward risks. The museum has the right to sell works if it must to maintain the bulk of the collection.

“We have no intention of selling anything either from the Panza collection or the permanent collection, but we have had discussions with Dr. Panza over a period of several months about how to gain more time if it is needed. We fully expect to find funds for the next installment but we hope Dr. Panza will agree to an alternate plan. We are not under pressure or in a crisis.”

He admitted that the board had given detailed consideration to which works--presumably those of lesser importance--might be sold in a worst-case scenario.

Panza, clearly emotional on the subject, said: “There are no less important works in this collection. Each group is unique. No museum in the world has such a rare group of Oldenburgs or 40 Tapies of this quality.”

He indicated that he was willing to consider an extension of up to two years on the remaining $5-million debt, provided that the museum pay him interest.

MOCA is preparing to open its $22-million museum, designed by international architect Arata Isozaki, at the California Plaza development atop Bunker Hill on Dec. 8. It has operated a cavernous, recycled former police warehouse called the Temporary Contemporary in Little Tokyo for the last three years and has a 50-year lease with the city for that facility.

MOCA’s long-awaited opening comes after a stormy beginning that saw controversies with the architect, the resignation of its original director and a lawsuit by one major contributor.