Art Donations Make for a Very Good Year at MOCA

Like most major art museums, Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art gets a rush of art gifts at the end of each year, when collectors typically make tax-deductible contributions. It now appears that 1999 was a particularly good year for MOCA--and not only because of tax breaks. Of the 120 works added to the museum’s collection last year, 17 pieces were donated in honor of Jeremy Strick, who succeeded director Richard Koshalek last July.

In a show of support for the museum’s new leader, MOCA trustees have donated paintings by Ed Ruscha, John Currin and Hans Hofmann, sculptures by Carl Andre and Rebecca Horn, a laserdisc by Tracey Emin, a video work by Steve McQueen and a photograph by Sigmar Polke, among many other pieces. Two anonymous patrons also dedicated gifts to Strick--a charcoal and chalk drawing by Jasper Johns and an oil and wax painting by Brice Marden.

“It’s very impressive,” Strick said of the recent donations. “This is a great group of work and the range is extraordinary, both in terms of artists and media. It represents everything we want for MOCA.”

Dean Valentine, president of UPN network and head of the MOCA board of trustees’ acquisition and collection committee, said that the long list of high-quality acquisitions signals “a renewed commitment to the permanent collection” and “a redefining moment for MOCA.” The museum’s acquisitive energy had slackened during the last four or five years, but Strick has sparked new interest, he said.

Thanks to the goodwill movement, MOCA also has obtained a painting by British artist Chris Ofili, whose unorthodox portrayal of a Madonna was the focus of controversy in the Brooklyn Museum’s recent “Sensation” exhibition. Ofili’s “Monkey Magic--Sex, Money and Drugs”--made of acrylic, collage, glitter, resin, map pins and, of course, elephant dung--was purchased with funds from the Broad Art Foundation.

Important additions to the museum’s collection also came from other sources. The estate of Marcia Simon Weisman donated Sam Francis’ 1961-62 painting “Blue Balls VIII,” a major example from a prime period of the artist’s career. A coalition of donors provided funds to purchase a major installation by New York sculptor Robert Gober. The complex work--depicting a suitcase and the legs of a man and a child in an underground tide pool--was commissioned for the museum’s 1997 Gober exhibition, but the transaction was finalized last year.

MOCA’s most valued new possessions include works by internationally renowned artists, such as an anonymous donation of a 1977 canvas splashed with animal blood by Viennese Actionist Hermann Nitsch. But 1999 was also a very good year for young Southern California artists at MOCA, said chief curator Paul Schimmel. An eclectic array from various donors of paintings, kinetic sculptures, multimedia installations, photographs and videos by up-and-comers includes works by Amy Adler, Kevin Appel, Jessica Bronson, Dave Muller, Martin Kersels, Monique Prieto and Jason Rhoades.

MOCA was not among the 29 institutions recently designated to receive donations from Los Angeles contemporary art collectors Peter and Eileen Norton. Peter Norton, a former MOCA trustee, declined to explain the omission. However, a major donation from the Norton collection appears to be in the offing: “Fall ‘91, 1992,” a version of Charles Ray’s 8-foot-tall female mannequin known as “The Big Lady,” is a promised gift to the museum.