 |
| Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park 131, 1985. MOCA, gift of Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg |
MOCA has released
a list of the 158 works (by 106 artists) acquired in calendar year 2025. They include a magisterial Richard Diebenkorn
Ocean Park painting plus works by artists recently featured in MOCA exhibitions (Olafur Eliasson, Paul Pfeiffer, Henry Taylor, and Takako Yamaguchi, among others).
A 1991-1992 window in the tax code favored donations of appreciated art. This resulted in a spike of gifts to museums nationwide, many of them partial gifts allowing the donors to keep the art on their walls for decades hence. At that time Lenore and Bernard Greenberg anonymously pledged their Diebenkorn
Ocean Park to MOCA. The gift was completed last year, along with the
donation of their drawing collection to the National Gallery of Art.
Diebenkorn had a studio in Santa Monica's Ocean Park neighborhood from 1967 to 1988. The Greenbergs' Ocean Park 131 has been shown at MOCA just twice, in 1992 and 2010. As the museum's first Diebenkorn painting, Ocean Park 131 fills a major gap in the post-war holdings. MOCA still doesn't have a de Kooning, but the absence of West Coast great Diebenkorn really stung.
 |
| Josef Albers, Variant: Violet, Red Against Blue, 1947. MOCA, gift from the Collection of Laura-Lee and Robert Woods |
Also in that tax-efficient year 1991, Laura-Lee and Robert Woods promised a trove of postwar works. Now fully entering the MOCA collection are paintings by Josef Albers, Morris Louis (two large canvases), John McLaughlin, Ed Moses, and Ross Bleckner.
 |
| Morris Louis, Untitled A, 1960. MOCA, gift from the Collection of Laura-Lee and Robert Woods |
 |
| John McLaughlin, #14, 1963. MOCA, gift from the Collection of Laura-Lee and Robert Woods |
Laura-Lee Woods (1926-2025) named this McLaughlin as the favorite painting in her collection.
 |
| Llyn Foulkes, Nob Hill, 1964–1965. MOCA, gift of Adam Lindermann, Jolie Nahigian and Ivan Moskowitz, and Andrea Rosen Gallery |
A group of five paintings and mixed-media pieces by Llyn Foulkes span the artist's career.
 |
| Takako Yamaguchi, Magnificat #3, 1984. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Sean and Alexandra Parker |
 |
| Henry Taylor, untitled, 1991. MOCA, purchased with funds provided by anonymous donors, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth |
Henry Taylor's earliest body of work is the "Camarillo drawings" of patients as the state mental hospital where the artist worked. Anonymous donors bought 21 of these portraits out of the MOCA-organized "Henry Taylor: B Side."
 |
| Jeff Wall, Passerby, 1996. MOCA, gift of Alan Hergott and Curt Shepard |
 |
| Sayre Gomez, Fire Season 6, 2021. MOCA, gift of Gary Steele and Steven Rice |
 |
| Paul Chan, La Baigneur 2 (or Demos), 2017. MOCA, gift of Chara Schreyer |
Paul Chan's "Bathers" reimagine Cézanne and Matisse's sensuous subjects as muffler-shop balloon-dancers. La Baigneur 2, a headless wraith clutching an American flag, seems to say something about the attention economy's confederacy of dunces.
 |
| Julie Mehretu and Nairy Baghramian, TRANSpaintings (green ecstatic), 2023–2024. MOCA, purchased with funds provided by Sean and Alexandra Parker |
 |
| Olafur Eliasson, Observatory for seeing the atmosphere's futures, 2024. MOCA, gift of the artist |
 |
| Flora Yukhnovich, Fête galante V, 2024. MOCA, purchased with funds provided by Ramtin Naimi |
 |
| Walead Beshty, What Goes Around Comes Around [DIVORCE & CUSTODY 909-485-9282], 2024. MOCA, gift of the artist in honor of Johanna Burton |
 |
| Cynthia Daignalt, Twenty-Six Seconds, 2024. MOCA, purchased with funds provided by Pete and Michelle Scantland |
One of the break-out works in "Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968," Twenty-Six Seconds is an oil-on-linen painting of successive frames of the Zapruder film.
 |
| Ali Eyal, Look What I Remember, 2024. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, purchased with funds provided by the Emerging Art Fund |
Ali Eyal's Look What I Remember is a remixed memory of the artist's childhood in Iraq. Occupying a bald spot in a vortex of hair/vegetation is a drone's-eye view of the farm of the artist's uncle, destroyed by U.S. bombs. Eyal found that the farm's details linger in a Google Maps image.
Comments
First impression: MOCA better gear up, space-wise. In flipping through the 30-page list, I note the size of these canvases, generally, is enormous.
*
As an aside, if one ever visits Albany, NY, take pains to visit The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, a group of 92 1960s and 1970s American masterpieces, which Rockefeller gifted to the public. My favorite Morris Louis is there.
--- J. Garcin
> MOCA just twice, in
> 1992 and 2010.
That makes their special-exhibition (generally of mainly loans) versus permanent-collection schedule seemingly more ambitious than necessary, both financially and logistically.
Their building on Grand Ave is very small, while their building in Little Tokyo is caught between two worlds. It's closed during various months of the year, often longer than ideal, perhaps due to money issues. Which is why it's too bad the 2 locations weren't arranged as one: Staffing for things like security and ticketing/info has to be split, and the Isozaki building by itself is a "is that all there is?" type place.
I used to think mainly contemporary artists were into large canvases. But then it occurred to me the Louvre is full of huge paintings made centuries ago.
This blog several days posted about this, which I believe will be one of the few large works in the Lucas:
https://youtu.be/SdDLCwJorfg?si=KW1hVtyZkR6vBpWJ
Although most of its objects are of the past few decades, I think a majority of them have the width and length of posters or magazine covers.
A museum like MOCA or the Broad (or major portions of the Louvre or the European galleries of the Met) can be strolled through looking at everything from a distance, whereas the Lucas will have more works that require a look-see from just a few feet away.