Opinion: L.A.’s Modern-Art Museum Should Distance Itself From Eli Broad

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles must distance itself from billionaire patron Eli Broad to retain its independence and build a stable future, a New York Times critic asserts.

Roberta Smith writes in the aftermath of MOCA’s apparent rejection of a merger offer from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that carried a potential $100-million cash infusion. The union was reportedly opposed by Mr. Broad, who rescued the ailing contemporary-arts museum with a bailout in 2008 and is considered by some in the Los Angeles cultural community to hold too much sway at MOCA.

“The combination of the domineering Mr. Broad and unusually passive trustees has forced to its knees one of the greatest American museums of the postwar era,” Ms. Smith says.