Njideka Akunyili Crosby, *Obodo (Country/City/Town/Ancestral Village)*, 2018.
Photo: Elon Schoenholz; Courtesy of the artist, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Victoria Miro, London/Venice.
Klaus Biesenbach
The new director of MOCA in L.A. is known for bringing underrepresented voices to center stage
Klaus Biesenbach. Photo: Sasha Arutyunova
Over the past two decades, Klaus Biesenbach has become known for bringing underrepresented voices to center stage, most notably as chief curator at large at MoMA, where he raised the recognition of performance art (see the showstopping 2010 exhibition he organized, “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present”), or as director of the museum’s edgy Queens offshoot, MoMA PS1, where he staged groundbreaking solo shows by emerging talents such as Ryan Trecartin and Chinese contemporary artist Cao Fei. Now he’s bringing that savvy to his new role as director of MOCA in L.A.
Just weeks after he took the helm in October 2018, the museum announced new board members, including K11 Art Foundation founder Adrian Cheng, Sean Parker, and Julia Stoschek, the buzzy German art patron who has amassed the most important collection of time-based art in the world. Biesenbach is clearly on his way to ensuring that MOCA better reflects the city’s diverse communities.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2019 Spring Issue under the headline Creative Minds. Subscribe to the magazine.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Questions), 1990/2018, is on view through November 2020 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Photo: Elon Schoenholz
Cover: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, *Obodo (Country/City/Town/Ancestral Village)*, 2018.
Photo: Elon Schoenholz; Courtesy of the artist, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Victoria Miro, London/Venice.
