The most revealing phrase in Eli Broad’s L.A. Times op-ed about Paul Schimmel’s dismissal is “$100 a visitor.” Broad is looking at exhibition costs in a way few museum visitors do, by taking a show’s cost and dividing it by the number of people who see it. His point is that some Schimmel-style scholarly shows—on which MOCA’s reputation is, or was, based—are costly in per capita terms because relatively few people see them. For Broad, and for unnamed “new trustees,” $100 per visitor is sticker shock territory. Should we feel the same? (At top, Warhol’s 200 One-Dollar Bills)
First of all, a baseline. Sounding like a deficit hawk, Broad contrasts the profligate MOCA of the 2000s, when expenses “spiraled out control,” to Deitch’s budget for next year of $14.3 million, and to 2011’s attendance of over 400,000. Using those figures, the average cost per visitor is $36.
I suppose a lot of people would be shocked at how high that figure is, being three times MOCA’s admission charge. But the admission is usually a modest fraction of a museum’s per-visitor cost. Needless to say, the $36 figure is an average. Half of last year’s attendance was due to “Art in Streets,” which must have fared well by Broad’s metric. But other shows were less attended and may have approached $100 a visitor territory. How many saw “Rebel” or “Theaster Gates,” and what did they cost? In any case, it’s far from clear that Deitch, or anyone, can turn out an endless succession of shows with the appeal of “Art in the Streets.”
Yes, but isn’t $100 a visitor just totally outrageous? Not really. L.A. Opera has a budget of about $54 million, and an attendance of about 200,000. That comes to $250 per seat. Broad has been a generous patron of L.A. Opera. (Left, Achim Freyer’s kooky Ring Cycle, funded by a $6 million gift from the Broads.)
One argument against the bean-counting is that ground-breaking exhibitions have influence far beyond those who attend in person. MOCA’s revisionist histories have catalogs that will influence thought for decades to come. Another is that collectors tend to donate art to institutions with strong and respected exhibition programs. Should someone, someday, donate a half-billion-dollar collection to MOCA because of its exhibition program, that would more than make up for MOCA’s entire budget during the 22 years Schimmel was employed there.
Come to think of it, it may have already happened. The Rita and Taft Schreiber collection, donated on Schimmel’s watch, is probably worth that much at today’s prices for Pollocks and Giacomettis. (Right, Mondrian’s Composition of Red, Blue, Yellow, and White: Nom II, a gift of the Schreibers.)
Agreed, the money is irrelevant—except to some MOCA trustees. The risk is being penny wise and pound foolish. About the only bargain in the museum business is talented curators, when you can get them. Schimmel’s salary ($235,414, less than half of Deitch’s) came to 59 cents per MOCA visitor.
Tags: Eli Broad, Jeffrey Deitch, MOCA, Paul Schimmel, Theaster Gates
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I suspect Deitch and Broad realized that having Schimmel around fed their own insecurities, so he had to go. I find it hard to believe that Broad is very interested in the success of MOCA. If anything, if MOCA shines his collection might be will fade because MOCA would continue to grow – his will be yet another stuck in time virtual mausoleum for his vanity. Perhaps the Barnes for 100 years from now. If one were cynical, one might think he rescued MOCA so that it did not fall in the hands of LACMA and now that the Broad is under construction nearby he is beginning a campaign to undermine it so that the Broad Museum can rush in and rescue it again, merging it with the Broad. It would be a great way to scoop up a collection for pennies on the dollar. Sounds like good business doesn’t it.
Art in the Streets was about as prescient as one can get with contemporary art at a museum. The most soulful art is happening outside the museums because inside it is all about the Wilsons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US100000dollarsbillobverse.jpg
unfortunately with the way MOCA is headed. what’s going to end up happening to that collection. as I doubt JD is interested in putting it up for show cause the work “isn’t contemporary enough”. People with collections like this are going to seriously go elsewhere. And it’s good for that other museum that gets a great collection like that, but bad for MOCA who just seems to be sinking deeper and deeper.
Eli Broad made a comment about much of MOCA’s collection being in storage, implying that it’s a waste for the museum to spend so much time and money on temporary exhibitions — which aren’t necessarily all that well attended — instead of just displaying more of its own collection. He has a good point there.
I just hope he and others affiliated with MOCA don’t do to it what Barry Munitz, former president of the Getty, was doing to that museum not too many years ago. Munitz still sickens me to this very day. People like him deserve nothing but everyone’s disgust and contempt. The folks at MOCA should receive no less if they mess up things the way that Munitz did.
Revisionist is right. It see thngs that were never there, and constructs with words what never has been, or should be.
Who cares? This ios but the destination started wiht the return of academic art about 1960, wordsmiths and rationalization of personal perversions taking over the day.
It happened in the 1800s, to be torn down by the Post Impressionissts. But todays museo/academic/gallery complex is far more insiudious and tied to supporting the status quo of its patrons. Its all investment and rationalizing a vapid existence, and they dont want to see what happened to those like Meissonier and Gerome, who the Getty salso tried to ressuciatate. at least they could draw and paint professionally, if not creatively with power.
When will the pwoers that be recognize that Modern adn Contempt are opposites, enemies even? No seeking the hgihest common denominator of being human, it is seperating the effete from teh hoi polloi. Entertainment has more merit, we all need the lowest common denominator, but from time to time, not inundating us with crap. See deitsch brining back disco from the dead. Actually still lives its vampire existence, its called techno now and even rap has been becoming castrated by its effeminizing ways. we need mena nd women, sex in healthy ways, procreating, virile, agrressive and supporting, not about selfish decadence.
This was inevitable. Either rebel, or enjoy. Take it, 99.9% of us dont care, as long as we dont waste public money on this. Deal with it. it. And you wonder why the arts funding has been cut so much.
Thanks academia, this is your only creation. Excrement.
art collegia delenda est