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| Gabriela Ruiz, Collective Scream, 2025. Mohn Art Collective (MAC3) |
In August 2024 the Hammer, LACMA, and MOCA
announced the Mohn Art Collective (MAC3), an alliance to buy and share contemporary art funded by Jarl and Pamela Mohn. The Mohns' founding gift included 260 works by L.A. artists, many drawn from the Hammer's "Made in L.A." biennials.
Great concept, but how does it work going forward? The just-closed 2025 biennial offers the first data point. MAC3 acquisitions include a strong sample of
"Made in L.A. 2025" artists, starting with Mohn Award winner Ali Eyal. His sole work in the show, a hellish vision of street-vendor capitalism outside New York's 9/11 memorial, was purchased.
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| Ali Eyal, And Look Where I Went, 2025 |
So were Pat O'Neill's photograph of a car and palm tree (featured on the street banners);
Alonzo Davis' Eye on '84 (recreated as the stairway commission); Gabriela Ruiz's Collective Scream; Beaux Mendes'
Dr. Lazarus.
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| Pat O'Neill, Los Angeles, 1960s |
Every museum that has a biennial/triennial/whatever tries to buy out of it. MAC3 seems to have the cash to preempt a strong selection of a biennial that truly matters. That's good for the museums and the artists.
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| Beaux Mendes, Dr. Lazarus, 2025 |
Comments
Ali Eyal's "And Look Where I Went," of 2025, is the best, to me. It reminds me of German Expressionism, particularly George Grosz's (1893-1959)
"Gefährliche Straße" ("Dangerous Street"), of 1918:
https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-george-grosz-gefahrliche-strabe-6252177/?from=salesummary&intObjectID=6252177&lid=1
I worked over 30 years a 5-minute walk to the Trade Center.
Brooklyn Law School held classes on September 12th. I remember being alone in my train car on my way there as it passed directly under the Trade Center that day. I will never ever get that smell out of my brain.
"Dangerous Street," indeed.
In turn, the NY Biennial opens today at the Whitney. Contemporary art on both coasts (internationally too) has become one big blur to me, sometimes coming off as a parody of itself. Although the pieces purchased by the MAC3 aren't so hipster-funky-abstract they make me go "huh?!"
When the Lucas Museum opens, I'm sure I'll have the opposite reaction.
Not sure if the two very different visual-creative-aesthetic camps will ever somehow meet in the middle. Meanwhile, museums like the Huntington feel a need to insert contemporary art into sections of its galleries otherwise. devoted to mainly older British art.
So because hipster-funky has been the loudest for the longest time in the world of culture and museums, the dialogue has been more one-sided. Although because a city like NYC or Paris has truly big-time encyclopedic museums like the Met or Louvre, they provide greater balance.
In LA, it's too much of a Pompidou-Pompidou.
And while contemporary will be inserted into the Geffen Galleries, I doubt that 1600's- or 1700's-era art will ever be inserted into BCAM---and I wouldn't be interested in seeing that either.
The Whitney devotes its Biennials to US-based artists, while the Hammer devotes it to LA-based ones. When contemporary art, however, is centered on race or nationality (etc) and is paired with old-time artists (pre-1900s, pre-late-1800s) merely because of shared race-nationality, that comes off as condescending or patronizing.