MOCA in Peril: Don't Ask for Whom the Bell Tolls

Rumors about the financial difficulties at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art have been circulating for a few years, but the institution, much admired for its cutting edge exhibition program, has maintained a brave face. The museum continued to mount exhibitions in all three of its facilities –- two large spaces downtown and a smaller one at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Ambitious exhibitions were accompanied by thick, scholarly catalogues, well designed and obviously expensively produced. So, maybe these rumors were unsubstantiated; after all, in the last few years the museum, instead of cutting its staff, actually expanded it...