LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 13: St. Vincent performs on stage during the 2024 MOCA Gala at The Geffen … [+]
For years, the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) Gala has been a highlight of LA's social calendar. Bringing together visual artists, actors, musicians and more (for example, this year's event featured Shepherd Fairey, Keanu Reeves), the annual event is a perfect example of how different arts inspire each other.
This year's gala, under the creative direction of sculptor Max Hooper Schneider and featuring an impressive performance by Saint Vincent, was a brilliant night. It sublimely showcased the vision of MOCA Executive Director Johanna Burton, who says her goal is to provide a vehicle for artists to express themselves. Although some say such things, Schneider confirms that this is indeed the case.
“At this point, Johanna is a dear comrade. She has been very supportive and throughout the process has tried to make sure that it is nurturing and nurturing for my practice. That is exactly what it is,” he told me. says Schneider.
With the freedom to articulate his vision, Schneider created a futuristic world that was dystopian and utopian, in Burton's words, as well as fascinating, unforgettable and compelling.
“My sculptures are events. I see them as non-static in certain situations. I've always said that I see them as incentive conditions without a clock. But there will be certain visual cues or things that will excite your body that will lead you to that thing,” he says. “Then you start to complete the story, which activates the thought. So for the gala, basically, you'll see different iterations and expression mutations that I practice. These are environmental anomalies that, if I'm successful, will excite people and take them somewhere they weren't expected to go.”
This included a visually stunning stage that Schneider created for the performance of St. Vincent. For Burton, this collaboration between music and art is something he hopes to continue at MOCA. I spoke with her about the merging of the two worlds and why this combination can be important for museums and supporting artists.
Steve Baltin: How long have you been at MOCA?
Johanna Burton: I've been here almost two and a half years. My third gala, my first was less than six months after I arrived. I jumped right into it and it was nice. I was lucky because it was a time when we were coming out of COVID and people were very anxious to be together again. A little hectic, but it was that wave when people were really excited, especially when things were out, which was a lot of that. So it was actually a very nice way to enter my time here at the museum.
Baltin: Learn more with each experience. So what were you looking for in setting this one up?
Burton: I'm really proud of the others we've done, but what was so great about this one is, as you probably know, we're looking at our fiftieth anniversary, believe it or not. And I've been thinking for a long time not about the history of the museum in a nostalgic way, but about what we do and what we continue to do differently. We've always made it a big priority to let artists lead and something about this gala that's really special is that MOCA has, in the past, handed the reigns over to artists to do the creative direction. But that hasn't happened in a super deep way for a while. I wanted to go back to that model, but also think about what it's like for a moment like today, coming out of COVID, coming out of all kinds of social change. So go to Max Hooper Schneider and St. Vincent struck me as this very natural return to the MOCA tradition, but in a fresh way. Max is the perfect mix of dystopian and utopian, of thinking about the end of days and the radical future. He's an artist that the museum has supported, he's a super artist from LA, even though he has an international career and someone who's become a friend and is a big cheerleader for the museum. I've known him since I've been here. I felt intuitively because of his love for the museum, which predates my time here, and because of the support the museum gave him through various endeavors, he was a great person to talk to. When I invited him to do the creative direction, he immediately got it. He said: “I'm not decorating the decor for this event. It's really an experience and an art installation.” It started with this idea of imminent destruction, like a meteor crashing into the ground right in front of the Geffen and almost knocking him over. Then it fills up and becomes this bioluminescent wishing for the good of the space. It's dystopian, it's utopian, it's pretty sci-fi, and it's really lush and full of pleasure. I also think of Saint Vincent in this way. I'm really excited about this new album, and I can't believe that Annie is willing to come and do it right when she's releasing the album. When we told Max we were thinking of her, he was over the moon.
Baltin: One of the exciting things about music now is how open everything is. Do you think the same is true in the art space, and if so, how is this influencing MOCA?
Burton: I'm glad you're bringing up cross-pollination. MOCA, as you know, has always been super interdisciplinary, that's something I want to bring back even more. I'd love for music artists to think about the platform and I hope that's why St. Vincent played for us, having a different audience experience. The grass may always be greener. Sometimes I look at the space you inhabit more with the musicians and sometimes I feel a little more free. But I actually think if you go into the art world beyond the more obvious platforms of galleries and stuff, people are doing incredibly adventurous work and doing it in places you wouldn't expect. I find that we can offer, even the Geffen space because it's so unique, it's a place where we can bring together artists who are really in dialogue but aren't together often. Even though Max and Annie aren't doing it as a collaboration, it's going to be one. She will perform on a stage that she produced. I think it's going to be really interesting, and one of my goals in this space, not only at the gala, but at the institution in general is to allow those kinds of interactions to happen. I think producing a space where people start to make that happen is very exciting for me. When the Geffen opened there was dance, we had architecture and design and fashion shows. I want to go back to a little bit of that hybridization. It's where we're going because it's how artists think. It's something we have to catch up on in museums. Museums are doing it, but not enough.
Baltin: How do you see Saint Vincent playing in this model?
Burton: She's someone I've admired for a long time and I know she's worked with visual artists like Alex Da Corte, who I think did a video for her new album (“Broken Man”), and she's a friend and amazing artist . So I think if it's something we can tap into more and often it's going to grow our audience as well, which I'm really excited about as well.
Baltin: Who is your dream musician to work with? The one with that hybrid of music and visuals that you think could do something special?
Burton: MOCA has a history of working with artists just when they were hitting a certain stride. For example, Lady Gaga played at one of our galas right when she was becoming Gaga. I just saw John Legend play last night, he played one of our galas. But I think what we're talking about is not just great talent, but a turning point in aesthetics and a conversation between fine art and music. There are a lot of artists I can think of, but I'd be curious to see what they'd like to do. What I like to offer as a museum director, and when I was also a curator, is the opportunity for the artist to do something that they couldn't do anywhere else. What I like is to offer something where people start thinking, “I could only do this at MOCA. So I have to do this at MOCA. That's interesting to me.
