The move puts MOCA in the company of other Los Angeles institutions that don't charge entrance fees.
Although Powers’ gift will only cover five years or so of free admission, a museum representative told Vankin that MOCA has “every intention a permanent change.” In a statement to Hyperallergic’s Hakim Bishara, the museum further writes that the funds will provide enough time to “create new fiscal strategies and develop revenue streams” capable of supporting long-term free admission. According to Vankin, visitor fees amounted to $1.3 million, or less than seven percent of the museum’s annual budget, for fiscal year 2018. Interestingly, admission accounts for just a small portion of MOCA’s revenue. Admission is free on Thursdays between 5 and 8 p.m. “I think many of us are at a point where we understand that museums should not be ivory towers,” Biesenbach adds in an interview with The New York Times’ Jori Finkel.Ĭurrently, MOCA’s general admission fees range from $8 to $15. “As a civic institution, we should be like a library, where you can just walk in.” (Biesenbach, who joined the Los Angeles museum in 2018 after more than 20 years at New York’s MoMA PS1, previously spearheaded an initiative aimed at providing free entry to the MoMA satellite museum for residents of all five of New York City’s boroughs.) “We are not aiming at having more visitors or larger attendance, but we’re aiming at being more accessible, at having open doors,” MOCA Director Klaus Biesenbach tells the Los Angeles Times’ Deborah Vankin. As the museum announced Saturday, the move will be funded by a $10 million donation from Carolyn Powers, president of the MOCA Board of Trustees, and is set to be implemented “as soon as possible.” Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art has eliminated entrance fees in an effort to increase visitor accessibility.