MOCA finally names new director after lengthy search, years of leadership turmoil

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred After almost two decades of high leadership turnover and a more than year-long search, the Museum of Contemporary Art has appointed Jonathan Abbott as its new director and chief executive.Abbott replaces interim director Ann Goldstein, who stepped in last July when Johanna Burton left somewhat unexpectedly for the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Abbott, who begins work immediately, joins the museum as its sixth director since 2008.He formerly served for 15 years as president and chief executive of the PBS-affiliated public broadcasting station GBH in Boston.

“I’ve spent my whole career around creatives,” Abbott told The Times.“I’m fundamentally a builder, and it’s fulfilling to me to work in an environment with a vital, vigorous mission, and where people on the staff and on the board and the community can align around making exciting things happen.”MOCA, which is about two years away from celebrating its 50th anniversary, has been plagued by controversy and turmoil — despite staging many notable exhibitions including last year’s “Monuments,” considered by many critics at the time to be the most significant American art museum show.The latest spate of upheaval began in 2018 when the museum hired Klaus Biesenbach.

Biesenbach, who vowed stability, was MOCA’s sixth director in its nearly 40-year history.He was brought on board about eight months after MOCA’s previous director Philippe Vergne fired the museum’s chief curator Helen Molesworth, only to leave a few months later.

That same year, MOCA canceled its annual gala amid controversy over a lack of diversity among former gala honorees — all straight white men.The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already difficult situation, when, after making general admission free at the beginning ...