MOCA Marks a Milestone : Temporary Contemporary Will Celebrate 5th Year in High Spirits

How do you judge the success of a 5-year-old contemporary art museum? Do you look at attendance figures? Administrative approval? Critical response? Fund-raising efforts?

None of the above, according to Richard Koshalek, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened its first show Nov. 20, 1983. “MOCA’s survival is the result of its ability to collaborate. Our strength is a collective attitude that allows us to work with the city, public leaders, other cultural institutions and many different constituencies, including artists, architects, photographers and performers,” he said.

In the five years since the museum staged “The First Show: Painting and Sculpture from Eight Collections 1940-1980” at a converted downtown Los Angeles warehouse called the Temporary Contemporary, the museum has presented 38 exhibitions and dozens of performances, as well as radio shows and video events. The widely publicized institution has played a major role in Los Angeles’ development as an art center and now counts itself as one of the world’s best showcases for contemporary art.

To celebrate, the Temporary Contemporary will mark its 5th birthday Saturday night with a $50-a-head street party, staged under the TC’s chain-link canopy in Little Tokyo. With KCRW-FM’s Tom Schnabel as deejay, a performance by Montebello’s Schurr High School marching band and a birthday cake decorated by local artists and rock stars, the evening promises to be unconventionally festive.

But before the fun starts, Koshalek is taking the opportunity to tally the young museum’s accomplishments:

--A membership of 25,000, much larger than any other contemporary art museum in the country. (Closest competitors are the 21-year-old Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, with 5,000 members; the 3,000-member Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, founded in 1936, and the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, 1,500, founded in 1948.)

--An endowment that has grown to $25 million, plus $4 million in outstanding pledges.

--A $7-million annual budget, which has developed without “letting the supply lag too far behind the troops,” according to Koshalek.

--Two popular and critically acclaimed buildings: the Temporary Contemporary, a cavernous warehouse renovated by architect Frank O. Gehry and leased for 50 years from the city, and the Arata Isozaki-designed museum on Grand Avenue, which opened two years ago.

--A growing permanent collection that includes an $11-million acquisition of 80 Abstract Expressionist and Pop works from the Giuseppe Panza di Biuomo collection, the late Barry Lowen’s gift of his collection and works by Southern California artists bought with funds from El Paso Natural Gas.

--An expansive program including popular extravaganzas, such as “Automobile and Culture”; retrospectives of such established artists as Jonathan Borofsky and Red Grooms; first museum shows for lesser known artists, plus performances and an architectural project that has commissioned designs for low-cost housing.

By most accounts, MOCA’s success is remarkable, though it has been severely challenged by inadequate funding, an overtaxed staff and a legal battle with former trustee Max Palevsky, who wanted architectural control of the Grand Avenue building in return for his financial support. (The case was settled two years ago in the museum’s favor, though Palevsky was not forced to pay the full $1 million he had promised as a founding donor.)

Artists, dealers and curators generally agree that MOCA has raised Southern California’s level of cultural sophistication and played a major role in the current gallery boom. The museum’s mere presence is a symbol that Los Angeles takes contemporary art seriously.

“The impact of MOCA was enormous and it was felt overnight,” said dealer Rosamund Felsen. “We had been waiting for such a long time,” referring to the area’s lack of a contemporary art museum since the 1974 demise of the Pasadena Art Museum.

Felsen and others say MOCA’s arrival and attendant publicity has brought more people to galleries and encouraged new collectors.

For artists, the downtown institution offered the dream of an important museum exhibition of their own work.

“It was a wonderful opportunity for me,” said Allen Ruppersberg, whose dream came true in 1985 when he showed 15 years of work at the Temporary Contemporary. “The show put all the disparate parts of my work together and encapsulated it,” he said, noting that the show even gave him a chance to design its unusual catalogue.

“Professionally, museum exhibitions help people accept things they may not have accepted before or look seriously at things they hadn’t considered. On a personal level, these shows expand your audience--and that creates its own snowball effect,” Ruppersberg said.

Artists love the TC’s flexible space; indeed, both buildings are widely praised.

But the excellent architecture challenges the museum to fill it with art of equally high quality, noted Susan C. Larsen, curator of the collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art. “I’d like to see them put more emphasis on the permanent collection,” she said.

Art watchers and participants alike seem to agree that the museum is an important presence and that its buildings are special. But the consensus breaks down in discussions of MOCA’s programs. Many observers think that some exhibitions--”Automobile and Culture,” a six-month show at the TC, and “Individuals: A Selected History of Contemporary Art, 1945-1986,” which continued for 13 months at both facilities--were much too long. Some of those same critics say that the museum has overcompensated for those shows with a flurry of far-flung projects that have little impact.

Dealer Richard Kuhlenschmidt contends that “the most important thing MOCA does is to generate a lot of shows. Whether they are good or bad is indifferent; the activity stimulates more dialogue,” he said.

But others complain that the program lacks serious substance or that it is too scattered. Art historians often say the program is more concerned with showmanship than scholarship. Another frequent criticism is that well-intentioned attempts to please different constituencies dilute or fragment the program.

“MOCA has lost some momentum because it has become too general,” said one observer. “I don’t think the museum has a focus. It’s all over the place and it’s trying to do too much too soon.”

Koshalek said he takes such criticism seriously but indicates no change in direction. An optimistic salesman who believes that the museum has a democratic mandate, he thinks and talks expansively.

During an interview in his office, he spewed forth lists of important people who have helped the museum (artist Robert Irwin, Mayor Tom Bradley, former Arco chief William Kieschnick), lists of communities that have received MOCA’s “Territory of Art” radio programs, lists of notable performers who have worked at MOCA (comedian-actress Whoopi Goldberg and performance artist Jo Harvey Allen, for example) and lists of new projects--all designed to reach more people, increase financial support, attract neglected segments of the community or serve the interests of professional groups.

Education will be the push for the next five years, Koshalek said, listing programs for families and plans to attract first-time visitors. But the museum’s long-term goal is “to be an integral part of the city,” he said. “If we are going to celebrate a 10th birthday and a 15th, we have to reflect the reality of what contemporary art is all about, and that is diversity.”

KEY SHOWS AT THE TEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY

Show Year Duration Attendance Budget “The First Show: Painting 1983-84 three months 110,000 $475,000 and Sculpture From Eight Collections 1940-1980.” “Automobile and Culture.” 1984-85 six months 180,000 $700,000 “Allen Ruppersberg: The 1985 three months 50,000 $55,000 Secret Life and Death.” 1986 two months 140,000 $125,000 “Red Grooms: A 1986 three months 150,000 $120,000 Retrospective 1956-1984.” “John Chamberlain: A 1986 two months 80,000 $170,000 Retrospective Exhibition 1955-1986.” “Tokyo: Form and Spirit.” 1986 two months 55,000 $205,000