MOCA FINDS ITS FEET
Artistic, managing directors are set to clarify the museum’s mission
It’s been a tumultuous beginning for Toronto’s new Museum of Contemporary Art, but if the scene greeting you when you enter the building these days is anything to go by, it appears the place is finally finding its feet.
MOCA’s two bosses meet me at the brand new ground-floor café, which had served its very first coffee just two days before. Nearby, a group from Nuit Blanche prepares for a volunteer-information session. They arrange chairs between the Andreas Angelidakis foam modules that form an ad hoc playground most weekends, deployed now as room partitions.
The scene is busy with regular museum activity — and that’s encouraging. These are signs that, after delayed launches, an identity overhaul, mysterious departures and much celebration as the doors to 158 Sterling Rd. finally opened to the public last September, MOCA has begun its next chapter: normal operation.
Artistic director November Paynter and managing director Rachel Hilton — they now split the duties of CEO — lead me through the gallery floors where they’re preparing a new suite of exhibitions. The pair took over from the museum’s previous leader, who resigned after 11 months on the job. The CEO before that left after just eight months. After that, the board of directors scrapped the position.
Now Paynter and Hilton, together, are setting the course for the new MOCA as it unveils its programming plans. They’re also set to clarify the museum’s mission for a city anxious to learn what exactly the new MOCA is and what’s
been happening there since the Queen St. W. art centre it evolved from went dark in 2015.
Including the tumult at the top, the museum suffered some very public setbacks over the three years it was planning and executing its big move.
First, after heading the rollout of the ambitious vision of a twobuilding art agora that would attract international visitors, as well as a thorough rebrand (that notably dropped “Canadian” from the museum’s name, turning MOCCA into MOCA), executive director Chantal Pontbriand exited after less than a year.
Next, in November 2017, the eight-acre development planned for neighbouring sites by partner and MOCA building owner Castlepoint Numa — which was to provide the museum an additional 75,000 square feet in 2020 — was cancelled.
Finally, with the art from its debut show still on the walls, CEO Heidi Reitmaier decamped for a position with the AGO this past December.
Other knocks were suffered privately. About two weeks after the September 2018 opening, “right when (we’d) just celebrated,” Hilton recalls, Reitmaier received a phone call: Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government was cancelling the $5-million pledged to the museum by the last provincial government. The sum made up a fifth of MOCA’s $25-million capital campaign to pay for construction and future operations. When that news came, Hilton says, “we had to look across the board at everything we were doing, the phasing of when we were doing those things and look more strategically at how we go forward.”
“It should also be said,” she notes, “we are having positive discussions with the Conservative government about a new application for funding.”
The changes left some members of the local arts community concerned.
“One thing I have found troubling is that there has been so much turnover in leadership,” says Gabrielle Moser, an independent curator and assistant professor at OCAD University.
Another, she says, is the building itself: “Both the opportunity and burden (of ) having that building and having to fundraise for that building … always worried me. When you visit the space, it feels like the (debut) show was rushed. And I imagine that’s because there have been so many infrastructural details to worry about.”
What exactly happened still isn’t clear. Addressing the turnover at the top, Paynter says somewhat cryptically that Pontbriand “had a certain vision that was just not able to be supported in this context.” Regarding Reitmaier’s resignation, Paynter says it was “a very personal decision.” (Reitmaier had agreed to participate in an interview for this story, but the AGO, her new employer, later cancelled it on her behalf, say- ing “we feel it’s not the right time for her to comment.”)
Paynter joined MOCA in January 2017 as director of programs, hired after a stint with Turkish arts organization SALT, where she proved herself an adept institution builder. She says that, throughout her tenure at MOCA, the vision has remained substantially consistent — and she has long played a significant role in shaping it. She arrived during the period between Pontbriand’s exit and Reitmaier’s arrival, so she’s been “very involved” in building the overall vision, she says.
The words she and Hilton use to describe the spirit of the museum haven’t changed: They want it to be welcoming, experimental, participatory and playful, Paynter says. An incubator. Reinforcing the vision, Hilton notes that MOCA intends to “share space,” alluding to partnerships that range from Art Metropole’s two-year residency and a studio collaboration with the Ontario Science Centre to a research project with the Institute for Advancements in Mental Health studying light therapy and public space interventions.
As for the character of exhibition programming, local, na- tional and international artists are all represented in the calendar ahead, with extra emphasis on the last category. The shows being installed during my visit opened Feb. 13, with major works by ascending artist Basma Alsharif and celebrated filmmaker Chantal Akerman occupying floors No. 2 and 3. Wearable sculptures and an accompanying sound piece from Toronto artist Ange Loft are presented on the fourth-floor Art in Use space.
Upcoming are exhibits by renowned international talents Mark Dion and Mika Rottenberg; Toronto-born, Londonbased Megan Rooney, likely alongside a well-known American installation artist; and, in September 2019, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar present Age of You, the museum’s second group show. With MOCA now operational, and its vision beginning to take shape, those early growing pains are now easier to discuss and finally offer some degree of clarity.
Breaking a long silence on her time with the museum, Pontbriand shared a note by email: “When I arrived in my position as the first CEO of the new institution the old MOCCA was to become, (I) found a place about to move into a new building without a plan. No precise vision, no program, no budget, no organizational chart, no schedule, no plan for developing a governance better suited to a museumlike institution, no financial plan, no fundraising plan, no marketing plan, and hence, no architectural plan. Plus hardly any staff.”
She wasn’t surprised to find it in such a state, she elaborates during an interview: “Being an art centre, as MOCCA with two Cs on Queen St. was, and (then) becoming a museum is a very different story.”
The vision she presented charted MOCA’s growth from an art centre — she says it was beloved within the Toronto milieu — to a 21st century museum capable of standing on the international stage. When asked if the board expressed concern over the enormous scope of her initial vision for MOCA, she says, “I can’t say they weren’t nervous.”
We asked board chair Julia Ouellette to comment for this piece, but MOCA said she was not able to participate. Other questions sent to MOCA for the board by email were referred to Hilton.
The challenges faced at MOCA were the same as those facing all museum institutions: to raise funds and attract audiences. Pontbriand says she was confident in the strength of the museum’s artistic program, the team it had assembled and the plans laid forth, and therefore “wasn’t too worried” about the prospect of raising capital. Before she left in June 2016, there was already a fundraising committee in place with a five-year target of $75 million. She has signed a nondisclosure agreement with MOCA and, about her departure, will only say: “What I can tell you is that it turned out to be a very difficult situation, and I had to leave.”
To those eagerly watching the museum — perhaps wont to scrutinize — Hilton says: “We are in our first year of operations, and we’re looking to grow into the building and inhabit this place fully … We’re excited to stabilize this operation and define what the new MOCA is going to be.”
Both she and Paynter want that definition to be transparent to the public, she says. “And one that will continue to evolve and be playful.”
“We want to have fun,” Paynter says.