The Museum of Contemporary Art

Join the Celebration! Become a member today and you'll receive an invitation for you and a guest to the Members' Opening of Judith F. Baca: World Wall, Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody, and Tala Madani: Biscuits taking place on Friday, September 9, 2022. Enjoy a celebratory night with live DJ sets from KCHUNG, hosted bars from YOLA MEZCAL and Better Booch, and an exclusive first look at the new exhibitions. Memberships start at $30. Find the best level for you and join now at the link in bio. If you have any questions, please contact the Membership Department at membership@moca.org.

Tickets are now available for fall at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA! Available now for advance reservation through 2022. 🥳🎉 Judith F. Baca: World Wall, Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody, and Tala Madani: Biscuits will open to the public at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA on Saturday, September 10. These exhibitions are open to the public with advance FREE ticket reservations. All visitors, including members, must get advance timed-entry tickets online. Reserve your advance tickets via link in bio. General admission to MOCA is free courtesy of Carolyn Clark Powers. Note that starting on Tuesday, September 12, 2022, both MOCA locations will now be open on Tuesdays! Our new museum hours for MOCA Grand Avenue and The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA are noted below: Monday: Closed Tuesday: 11am–⁠5pm Wednesday: 11am–⁠5pm Thursday: 11am–⁠5pm Friday: 11am–⁠5pm Saturday: 11am–⁠6pm Sunday: 11am–⁠6pm

"The new work is a fantasy and a utopia of how we could live together without fences..." . Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor marks the debut of Rist's new family of video works. In parallel with Rist’s conviction that the world in front of and in back of the TV is the biggest installation she can imagine, the Neighbors family inhabits the space just in front of—and just behind—the eyelid. Though it is not ultimately possible to see how the other sees, philosophy and science and poetry and Rist give it a shot. She invites us to do what is perhaps a close second—to be neighbors, to be near one another, for the other side of the collective unconscious is conscious collectivity.

𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒂 𝑫𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝑾𝒊𝒔𝒉* 𝒃𝒚 𝑷𝒊𝒑𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊 𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒕 The Gala Dance Party supports The Museum of Contemporary Art and will feature music by Heidi Lawden and dancing, open wine and beer bar, and dessert stations on The Aileen Getty Plaza. You will also be able to explore the exhibition Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor before this landmark show closes June 6. . *𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒍𝒚 & 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒅𝒈𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕. . Join us Saturday, June 4, 2022 from 9:30pm-midnight at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Click the link in our bio to purchase tickets and support MOCA today! 🕺 #MOCAGala2022

Visit the link in bio to learn more about our Contemporary Art Start program, and find out how your classroom can be part of our 2022-23 year. Share this post with a teacher, student, or parent in your life! 💙📚

𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒂 𝑫𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝑾𝒊𝒔𝒉* 𝒃𝒚 𝑷𝒊𝒑𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊 𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒕 Introducing a new element to the MOCA Gala, our biggest fundraising event of the year! The Gala Dance Party supports The Museum of Contemporary Art and will feature DJs and dancing, open wine and beer bar, and dessert stations on The Aileen Getty Plaza. You will also be able to explore the exhibition Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor before this landmark show closes June 6. Music to be announced! . *𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒍𝒚 & 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒅𝒈𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕. . Join us Saturday, June 4, 2022 from 9:30pm-midnight at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Click the link in our bio to purchase tickets and support MOCA today! 🕺 #MOCAGala2022

"What I'm most excited about is that child in the backseat, or the commuter hopping off the bus after a long day, that might take an added second to engage with the piece." . Artist #DerekFordjour 's large-scale work Sonic Boom is now on view at MOCA, decorating the facade of our Grand Avenue location. Hear from Fordjour himself about the meaning of the work and the impact he hopes it has not just for MOCA, but also for our Downtown Los Angeles community. Check out Sonic Boom next time you're near Grand Ave!

Welcome to our parade! Artist Derek Fordjour drew inspiration from the HBCU marching band tradition for his latest work, Sonic Boom, which covers the exterior facade of MOCA's building on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. Sonic Boom takes its name from Jackson State University's marching band AKA The Sonic Boom of the South. They are known for their intricate, precise marching as well as their iconic big band sound. You can almost hear the drumline performing through this installation! . This project by Derek Fordjour is generously supported by an anonymous donor. Video courtesy of Derek Fordjour.

"The word 'witch' to me, is not a bad word at all. I embrace that word and consider myself a witch in the best possible way. To me, it’s a really empowering word. It gives an agency... I’m using these words and these images and twisting them to be more my version, which is one of empowerment of the female perspective." . #TruleeHall 's monumental Witch House (2020) is now on view at MOCA. This haphazard, lean-to structure emulates a rotting tree or theatrically haunted house. Inside, Hall has created her own coven of sorts, with videos showing a group of female performers acting out witchy birthing rituals. Witch House is paired with works by #Cameron , #KandisWilliams , and #WallaceBerman , all of which explore occultism in California art. Witch House is part of Old and New Dreams: Recent Acquisitions in a Collection, a free exhibition at MOCA. . [Trulee Hall, Witch House (Seance of the Umbilical Coven), 2020, wood, paper mâché, resin, fabric, stuffing, fake fur, synthetic hair, altered sex dolls, acrylic paint, spray paint, found candle holders, cornucopia baskets, found ceramic cornucopia, found crystal balls, convex mirror, polymer clay, hardware, LED candles, logs, sticks, volcanic rocks, monitor, video, Installation dimensions variable, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Gift of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch. Video from Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. Hall quote from Studio International.]

#IanCheng 's practice is rooted in his ongoing interest in the behavioral sciences and has increasingly come to focus on live simulations and artificial intelligence. His 2018/2019 work BOB (Bag of Beliefs), seen here, takes the form of an artificial organism that lives in digital space. BOB is currently on view at MOCA and includes an interactive element where viewers can "feed" BOB during their visit. . Presented on flatscreen monitors, BOB appears as a chimeric branching serpent who is programmed to seek out and satisfy its immediate impulses, but who is also responsive to input from its viewers. By downloading an app called BOB Shrine, museum visitors can introduce objects and “offerings” that will influence BOB’s life. In effect, to encounter BOB at any given moment is to witness a life form in constant conflict between personal desire and engagement with others and the world. . Further, each encounter with BOB is a singular experience, shaped by the stream of inputs BOB enacts in perpetuity. The work offers a unique commentary on personal struggle and social engagement in the face of digital chaos, positing that subjectivity is akin to a “bag” or container of deeply held beliefs, that is subject to ongoing change. . [Ian Cheng, BOB (Bag of Beliefs), 2018-2019, artificial lifeform, infinite duration, dimensions variable, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Purchase with funds provided by the Kwon Asian Art Acquisition Endowment.]

"The work tried to expand the reality. Only the sender is staying the same size, and the reality is blown up." 🛋 . #PipilottiRist 's 1994 installation Das Zimmer (The Room) introduces the typically private sphere of the living room into the communal, public setting of the museum. The absurdly proportioned furniture positions viewers as children, taking them back to a time when watching television was still a strange and thrilling adventure. . Das Zimmer is now on view in Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor at The Geffen Contemporary. Tickets are available for purchase at the link in bio.

In memoriam Dan Graham (1943-2022). . MOCA mourns the death of Dan Graham, a genre-defying artist whose work since the mid-1960s made a fundamental impact on the histories and practices of contemporary art. In his conceptual works for magazine pages, pioneering experiments with video and performance, and architectural pavilions, Graham was a keen observer of physical, social, and psychological boundaries—and an always experimental advocate for their destabilization. He pursued his great topics—rock and roll, the American suburbs, built spaces of intersubjectivity—with kaleidoscopic intelligence and "anarchistic humor" (as he called it). His generosity to students and other artists was legendary, and though he lived in New York he counted numerous Los Angeles artists as friends and influences. Among these is Paul McCarthy, heard here in a video clip from the opening festivities of "Dan Graham: Beyond," a 2009 retrospective organized by MOCA which charted forty years of Graham's practice and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The full video of McCarthy's poem to Graham is available at the link in our bio. We extend our sincere condolences to Graham's family and to his many friends and colleagues around the world.