MOCA names its new director amid controversy
After months of turmoil, including the firing of its chief curator and the imminent departure of its director, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has chosen its next leader: Klaus Biesenbach, chief curator at large at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and director of its experimental satellite space, MoMA PS1.
“He’s a total visionary,” MOCA board president Maria Seferian said. “He’s an incredible museum executive. He’s innovative. He’s done it all.”
Some MOCA critics had hoped the museum would choose a director who reflected the racial diversity of the city or who addressed the under-representation of women in museum leadership nationwide. But the appointment of Biesenbach won praise from other quarters, including photographer Catherine Opie, who serves as one of MOCA’s artist board members.
“He is really known for championing emerging artists, and MOCA holds dearly to that as the artists’ museum,” Opie said.
The board reviewed nearly 40 candidates from an
international pool. Biesenbach won unanimous approval Tuesday morning.
“I feel very honored and grateful,” Biesenbach said by phone from New York.
In turning to an established figure in the New York and European art scene, the museum seems intent on sending the message that its internal disarray is a thing of the past.
Directors are usually administrators and fundraisers, but Biesenbach brings an extensive resume as a curator. He is perhaps best known for curating a survey of Marina Abramovic’s performance work at MoMA in 2010. He did serve as administrator at MoMA PS1, which, though affiliated with MoMA, functions as a separate entity with its own budget, development team and board (led by philanthropist Agnes Gund).
As director, he helped to triple that institution’s annual budget to $12 million, and two years ago he helped to launch fundraising for an endowment, which stands at $14 million. (MOCA’s annual budget is $19 million, and its endowment stands at more than $130 million.)
“He will bring stability and a new vision,” MOCA board co-chair Maurice Marciano said, “revamping programs, building the attendance, making it much stronger.”
The announcement follows a season of tumult at the museum. In February, painter Mark Grotjahn, who sits on the MOCA board of trustees, declined to be honored at the museum’s annual gala, citing a lack of diversity among past honorees. (Recipients have included Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari and Jeff Koons.)
“Since the day you extended your invitation to me, our country and the world have changed in ways that were difficult to anticipate,” Grotjahn said in a note to the board. “There is a new urgency to change the power dynamic." The gala was canceled. L.A. painter Lari Pittman, who is Latino and gay, resigned from MOCA’s board and described a fractious environment.
“What my resignation implies is an individual and personal vote of no confidence in the relationship between the board and the director and the director and the board, between the board and the curatorial team and between the directorship and the curatorial [team] — in other words, it’s in every direction,” Pittman told The Times. “It’s a vision problem in what the board wants, what the director wants and what the curatorial team wants.”
Just one month later, the museum fired chief curator Helen Molesworth, who had recently overseen critically admired retrospectives devoted to the African American painter Kerry James Marshall and the Brazilian conceptualist Anna Maria Maiolino. The move outraged many. Opie described it as “a terrible mistake.”
In May, the board announced it would not renew Vergne’s five-year contract — after The Times reported that Vergne had put his L.A. house on sale.
Biesenbach said he took it all into consideration.
“The first call came from Cathy Opie,” he said. “I said, ‘Perhaps it’s not for me.’ But I can be good in a situation where you create a conversation. So I came to L.A. with the wish to meet every single board member. They said, ‘Nobody has ever done that.’ ”
As he met with 37 board members, he grew invested in the post.
“I felt like this was quite a unique opportunity,” he said, adding that his training at PS1 had prepared him for what lies ahead. “I owe a lot to [MoMA director] Glenn Lowry and Aggie Gund. They helped me and taught me how to build up.”
In an emailed statement, Lowry said Biesenbach’s “legacy of daring exhibitions, his commitment to artists, and his dedication to civic engagement, leaves an enduring mark not only at MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art, but in the cultural life of New York City and beyond.”
Biesenbach, 52, was born in West Germany and raised near Cologne. He got his start as the founder of Berlin’s Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art. He drew attention for experimental shows that featured the work of international artists such as Félix González-Torres and Yoko Ono displayed in unusual locations, such as an attic and an outdoor toilet.
He freely mixed art forms: In addition to hosting visual and performance artists, KW also featured essayist Susan Sontag and fashion designer Hedi Slimane as residents.
In 1995, he landed at PS1, where he worked as a curator part time, dividing his focus between Berlin and New York. A little more than a decade later, he joined MoMA in a combined role at the flagship museum and MoMA PS1.
He expanded MoMA PS1’s board of trustees to 30 members from 11. At the Queens space, he organized exhibitions by experimental figures such as filmmaker Kenneth Anger and new media artist Ryan Trecartin, as well the regular surveys, titled “Greater New York,” that were devoted to showcasing emerging artists from across the city.
At MoMA, he served as the founding curator of the museum’s department of media, established in 2006 — then the first new curatorial department there since 1940.
Biesenbach has certainly had critical hits, but he has also been critiqued for being overly reliant on spectacle. New York Times co-chief critic Roberta Smith described the Abramovic retrospective as “cheesy” and “sideshow-like.”
A 2015 survey of the work of singer and composer Björk that he organized for MoMA was widely drubbed by critics. The Atlantic described it as “slight on substance,” and a critic at Artnet likened it to “a cross between a fashion show and a theme-park ride.”
But Seferian said his qualifications as an administrator made him an appealing choice for MOCA. Gund highlighted Biesenbach’s skills as an executive in her statement: “As a leader, he raised the level of institutional stability and collegiality, served as a catalyst for projects that embraced our diverse community and artists at all stages of their careers, and created a vision for MoMA PS1 that will ensure future success.”
For an institution that has been challenged over representation and diversity, the naming of another white male as its leader is already raising eyebrows. New York magazine critic Jerry Saltz noted on Twitter: “One white European male leaves. Another enters.”
Likewise, Sarah Douglas, editor in chief of Artnews magazine, pointed out MOCA’s past directors — Pontus Hultén, Richard Koshalek, Jeremy Strick, Jeffrey Deitch and Vergne: “Klaus Biesenbach just hired… All white men… Everyone will be watching.”
Seferian defended the selection.
“Diversity is important to us,” she said. “We had a diverse group of candidates. We care about it. But Klaus emerged as the top candidate, all things considered.”
Biesenbach said he has been sensitive to the artists and regions that matter to L.A., having curated an exhibition of Mexico City artists and having traveled to Korea, Japan and China to advise experimental art schools and art spaces.
“That was one of the points brought up in my board meeting,” he said. “I was like, you live on the many cutting edges that are the most important points of discussion . ... You are on the Pacific Rim, and you have Asia, and you have this incredible privilege of being so close to Mexico.”
Biesenbach’s start date has yet to be set. Vergne will remain at MOCA until then.