Like Its Art, MOCA’s Ad Campaign Draws Variety of Reviews

Christopher Knight makes several important points in his commentary on the now well-publicized ad campaign for Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art (“Taking the Public for a Spin,” Feb. 16). As a healthy tonic to the misplaced civic boosterism expressed by The Times in an earlier editorial, Knight correctly sees how any current and potential supporters of this museum and its programs are ultimately insulted by this strategy gone awry.

Aside from artists, who should rightly feel that their efforts are being slighted by all involved, the people of Los Angeles are being uniformly informed that they are the unwitting flotsam and jetsam of a gigantic art piece loaned back to them through the graciousness of MOCA. This is a dangerous portent of the elitism MOCA would seemingly be striving to eliminate through this campaign, and may engender a result that no advertising salvo can save.

CHRISTOPHER FORD

Los Angeles

*

Knight’s view of a museum’s “core constituency” appears rather narcissistic, if not elitist; his commentary mentions the negative response to the MOCA ad campaign of critics and artists only. Somehow, I was under the impression that a museum’s fundamental constituency is the general public, most members of which are probably not as enlightened as Knight about what constitutes “good” modern art.

In my opinion, many of the Westside billboard ads exhibit a refreshing sense of humor. I have long considered a lot of modern art to be objects from everyday life masquerading as a profound statement whose meaning is discernible only to the hip and the stoned. And here are billboards proclaiming a bunch of everyday surroundings as art!

The ads I have seen are clever, they have prompted me to consider visiting MOCA and they have provided me food for thought while stopped at traffic lights.

JEANNE T. BLACK

Culver City

*

I was stunned by Knight’s personal revelation: “Feeling as I do that it is entirely possible to live a long, happy and productive life without ever seeing a painting or sculpture, I’ve never been one to proselytize for art.”

If he feels this way, then how could he possibly ever critique art and supposedly assist the public in understanding what work is relevant, meaningful, inciting, innovative and worthwhile? Yes, I suppose one can live a long life without art, but happy and productive? I sincerely doubt that.

Art is what separates us as human beings. It is what makes us unique from all other living creatures on the planet. Our creativity, our art, in all forms, is what makes our life meaningful and brings us closer to one another. If Knight doesn’t believe this and is not interested in “proselytizing” for art, then, boy, has he chosen the wrong profession. No wonder I never agree with him about anything.

JULIE DELLIQUANTI

Rancho Santa Margarita

*

Knight’s commentary is utterly appalling. As an art collector and trustee of the Museum of Contemporary Art, I experience art, no matter the medium, as a transformative experience. Contemporary art may not always be beautiful, or even agreeable, but the best of it is about ideas that teach us about our society and ourselves. To see the faces of kids as they pass through the museum is to know the power of art to enrich our lives.

MOCA’s new ad campaign was clearly designed to be controversial. Whether people like it or hate it hardly matters. What matters is that they are talking about MOCA, and visiting its three locations, and why not? MOCA is one of the preeminent contemporary art museums in the world.

SUSAN BAY-NIMOY

Los Angeles

*

Perhaps the reason why some artists and Knight have such distaste for MOCA’s new ad campaign is that they cannot accept the fact that an advertising campaign for a contemporary art museum is actually a more imaginative and thought-provoking expression of contemporary art than some of the museum’s exhibits.

The ads make the museum the star, make the sum greater than the parts. And makes me, at least, a mere consumer, assume that the parts must be pretty amazing and worth checking out. The campaign is truly audacious. Just like the best contemporary art. Just like the best advertising.

PEN PENDLETON

Hancock Park

*

As I drive the streets of our city, I find that the MOCA campaign has taken an important step toward opening the museum experience to a wider public by using the city as a living exhibition space, and by incorporating Angelenos as participants in a vibrant dialogue that challenges Knight’s more traditional notions of art and the “institutional taboo.”

Unfortunately, Knight’s commentary only perpetuates the alienation experienced by many who live their lives outside of the museum-supporting “core constituency” whose interests Knight has empowered himself to represent and defend. The irony is that the more Knight criticizes MOCA for usurping the role of a bad artist, the more difficult it will become for him to explain why he took the time as The Times’ art critic to draft a polemic against a clever advertising gesture designed to engage the general public.

LEV GINSBURG

Los Angeles

*

As a longtime LACMA subscriber, I would like to raise a lonely voice of support for the battered “Made in California” exhibit. I thought the show was great fun, and I learned a lot from it.

Keep your “stoke” up, LACMA! This member of your “core constituency” has not been alienated one bit by your efforts to bring art to a wider audience.

BRENT FORRESTER

Malibu

*

In a commentary that might have been better entitled “Fear and Loathing at LACMA,” Knight launched into a shrill and vitriolic denunciation of the museum for presuming to hold a discussion on its “Made in California” exhibition. Having deemed the show “lousy”--a judgment that we are apparently meant to understand as being both profound and final--Knight seemed to be outraged by the possibility that curators might be conspiring with museumgoers to second-guess this pronunciamento.

Nonetheless, several hundred of us benighted members of the public gathered for a loosely moderated conversation at LACMA’s Institute for Art and Cultures that turned out to be both balanced and stimulating. Instead of attempting to exert spin control over the public’s reaction to the show, the museum’s staff actually appeared to be trying to learn from it. And it should be noted that, for every negative opinion from the audience, there seemed to be a positive one--some of which were both cogent and persuasive.

For those of us who care about art and the institutions that support it, it is both puzzling and dismaying to see The Times’ art critic mount a preemptive attack on a leading museum’s effort to interact with its constituents.

CHRISTOPHER BEIRN

Santa Barbara

*

“Made in California” is a terrible waste of resources. Whoever put it together seems obsessed with sex, the hippie culture and the bizarre. Instead of a dirty old garage, why not show a representation of the garage where Hewlett and Packard started out, or one of the many really neat and clean garages where cars were worked on?

What about the development of the water system in the state, one of the greatest in the world? What about the development of the airplane in the state? What about the developments in Silicon Valley, known around the world? What about the wine industry? What about the biotech development in Ventura County? There is great art connected with all of these developments. I could go on and on.

PAUL LUX

Thousand Oaks