California Museums Cutting Back

Published: November 7, 2008

Photo by zakvta, courtesy flickr

L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art will close its Geffen Contemporary annex for six months beginning January 6, 2009.

Luisa Lambri Dan Graham A Sarcophagus Heads Home Dan Graham Dan Graham Dave Muller in Los Angeles John Miller in Los Angeles The Conceptual Art Father

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LOS ANGELES—With donor dollars shrinking and ticket sales on the decline, Southern California arts organizations, including several museums, have begun to react to the current economic difficulties by cutting staff and canceling or postponing exhibitions and other programs, reports the Los Angeles Times.

L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art has announced it will close its Geffen Contemporary annex for six months beginning January 6; a exhibition of works by Dan Graham that was to appear there has been relocated to the museum's main location. Three shows planned for the main location — featuring artists Luisa Lambri and Drew Heitzler and the architectural firm Morphosis — have been postponed.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has implemented a hiring freeze, and is reporting that while attendance is up, thanks to a popular show of photographs from Vanity Fair magazine, membership revenue has fallen about $500,000 short of its $8.6 million goal for the fiscal year.

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Eli Broad, a board member and major donor at LACMA and a trustee of MOCA says that museums will have to reduce their workforces, expenses, and acquisitions, and "become more populist" in terms of what they show.

"Let me say this: It can't be business as usual for the next several years," he told the L.A. Times, adding that "the value of the Broad Foundation" — which has contributed $56 million to LACMA in recent years — "is down 18%."

Staff has already been cut at several local institutions, including the Orange County Museum of Art and the Autry National Center, which encompasses the Museum of the American West, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, and the Institute for the Study of the American West.

"This was a preemptive move in anticipation of decreased attendance and giving to the Autry over the next couple of years," said Autry president John L. Gray.

Ed. note: This article has been updated. The original version quoted the Los Angeles Times as saying that the Dan Graham exhibition at L.A. MOCA had been postponed until 2010. The museum has informed us that the show will open as scheduled on February 15, 2009.

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