Quote of the Day: Maria Seferian

"I think this is the right model for us right now. Maybe it wouldn't have worked 20 years ago and won't work 20 years from now, but it's the right moment for us now."

—MOCA Chair Maria Seferian, Sep. 3, 2021

"We met the moment that we were in. There was a logic behind it at the time and circumstances have changed." 

Maria Seferian, Sep. 14, 2021

Comments

Anonymous said…
MOCA is a mess. For such a small museum, the internal politics of that place sure looks like hell.
Anonymous said…
I guess the moment was to encourage Klaus to leave and have hired his replacement prior to his departure. Not sure what is going on behind the scenes, but it seemed the museum had gotten its finances in order, the programming remained quality, and the acquisitions were good.
Anonymous said…
Talk about internal politics. I hate to think of what's going on behind the scenes at LACMA several miles away.

Beyond that, it would be nice to know why MOCA's neighbor across Grand never turned its west-facing surface deck into an outdoor sculpture area. It instead has sat vacant and lifeless since 2015.

With the regional rail connector soon to make that an active throughway, it's really puzzling why the Broad's staff has never wanted to activate that space. Cost? Security? Logistics?
Anonymous said…
Well played, Ms. Seferian...

It looked like they were trying to push Klaus out. And, they did. Good riddance.

Ms. Burton can handle the job on her own.

For collectors who own the work of artists that she's championed in the past, it's also a big win.
Anonymous said…
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/09/true-colors-director-moca
Anonymous said…
^^^This is why we can't have nice things. From that Vanity Fair article:

>One source on the Los Angeles art scene declined to comment simply because they >didn’t have anything to say; “I’ve never heard of her [Johanna Burton],” one >prominent gallery owner in Los Angeles told me.

Really? This gallerist is a fool.

Anyone who has been following the contemporary art scene should have known who Burton was by 2019.

In 2019, her name became associated with an artist who in succession participated in the Carnegie International and the Venice Biennale. In 2021, that same artist won a prestigious commission and received ample coverage in the New York Times.