A senior curator claimed that the museum’s leadership was not ready to ‘fully embrace’ diversity initiatives
Two senior staffers at Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art have quit the institution. Senior curator Mia Locks resigned last month: in an email to staff, she alleged that the institution’s leadership was ‘not yet ready to fully embrace’ diversity initiatives. Locks was responsible for the museum’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) initiative.
A spokesperson for LA MOCA told the Los Angeles Times: ‘We are working across our organisation to fulfil our IDEA vision, taking tangible and immediate steps that include anti-racism workshops, an internal compensation survey and position audit, the formation of a multi-language task force and the creation of a dedicated IDEA staff position.’
The LA Times report also revealed that the museum’s director of human resources Carlos Viramontes resigned in February. ‘I cannot continue to work in a hostile environment,’ he wrote in an email to staff at the time. Speaking to the paper, Viramontes claimed that deputy director Amy Shapiro had retaliated against him after he was responsible for performance reviews of staffers including Shapiro and director Klaus Biesenbach. ‘There were things that came back about how she spoke to people or made them feel,’ he said. ‘Her ego was bruised. But I was just the messenger.’ The museum has denied the claim that Shapiro retaliated against Viramontes, according to the LA Times.
In February, the museum announced a restructuring, with Biesenbach taking on the new role of artistic director – ‘increasing the museum’s cultural visibility and artist relations, while at the same time growing the museum’s international profile and partnerships’ – and the hiring of a new executive director. Both Biesenbach and the executive director will head up the institution.
