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The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is an
art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although ...
in
La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...
, a community of
San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
, California. It is focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present.


Binational mandate

Located in the border city of San Diego, the museum's binational mandate includes a focus on artists from both sides of the US/Mexico border, celebrating both
San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
and
Tijuana Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...
’s artistic communities. MCASD has held several exhibitions that explore cross-border themes, including ''Being Here With You / Estando aquí contigo: 42 Artists from San Diego and Tijuana'', ''The Very Large Array: San Diego/Tijuana Artists in the MCA Collection'' and ''Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana''. In 2023, artists Celia Álvarez Muñoz and Griselda Rosas exhibited their artwork to express their lived experiences from living on both U.S. and Mexico borderlands. More than 35 pieces of art were exhibited by these two artists. They exhibited their special representations of artwork including sculptural installations, textile drawings, embroidery, book projects, and photographic series. Both exhibit a unique and share a circulation of cultures with their artwork.


Locations

MCASD has two sites, about 13.2 miles (21 km) apart: MCASD – 700 Prospect St, La Jolla, CA 92037. Located on a , MCASD's flagship La Jolla location was originally an Irving Gill–designed residence, built in 1916 for philanthropist
Ellen Browning Scripps Ellen Browning Scripps (October 18, 1836 – August 3, 1932) was an American journalist and philanthropist who was the founding donor of several major institutions in Southern California. She and her half-brother E. W. Scripps, E.W. Scripps creat ...
. Since opening in 1941, the property has undergone several expansions. Mosher & Drew completed a series of expansions in 1950, 1960, and again in the late 1970s; and a renovation by Venturi Scott Brown & Associates was done in 1996. In 2017, MCASD began its most recent expansion led by architect Annabelle Selldorf, which increased its size and added a public park. The La Jolla location reopened to the public after its four-year renovation on April 9, 2022. MCASD Downtown – 1100 Kettner Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92101. In 1986 MCASD established a small gallery space in downtown San Diego and later opened a larger downtown outpost in 1993 inside America Plaza adjacent to the
San Diego Trolley The San Diego Trolley is a light rail system serving San Diego County, California. The trolley's operator, San Diego Trolley, Inc. , is a subsidiary of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS). The trolley operates as a critical componen ...
line, designed by artists Robert Irwin and Richard Fleischner along with architect David Raphael Singer. In 2007, MCASD expanded its downtown facility with two buildings. * Joan and Irwin Jacobs Building – The Jacobs Building is named for philanthropists Joan and Irwin Jacobs. It was formerly the baggage building for the landmark Santa Fe Depot, built in 1915-16 for the
Panama–California Exposition The Panama–California Exposition was a World's fair, world exposition held in San Diego, California, between January 1, 1915, and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as t ...
. The Jacobs building has featured large-scale installations and sculptures including Maya Lin's ''Systematic Landscapes''. Commissioned by MCASD,
Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...
’s ''Santa Fe Depot'' (2004), six cube-like structures weighing a collective 156 tons, is located behind the building. * David C. Copley Building – In 2004, benefactor David C. Copley supported the construction of a new building that would occupy the site adjacent to the Jacobs Building. The Copley Building is outfitted with two specially commissioned permanent installations which feature
Light and Space Light and Space denotes a loosely affiliated art movement related to op art, minimalism and geometric abstraction originating in Southern California in the 1960s and influenced by John McLaughlin. It is characterized by a focus on perceptual p ...
art. Roman De Salvo made light fixtures of industrial materials for walls of the stairwell. Outside the building,
Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. Her work focuses on the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, projectio ...
created a parade of her trademark truisms to be spelled out vertically in light-emitting diodes. The words run through clear plastic tubes that she calls icicles.


History

Founded in 1941 in
La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...
as The Art Center in La Jolla, a community art center, through the 1950s and 1960s the organization operated as the La Jolla Art Museum. The museum was originally the 1915 residence of newspaper heiress and philanthropist
Ellen Browning Scripps Ellen Browning Scripps (October 18, 1836 – August 3, 1932) was an American journalist and philanthropist who was the founding donor of several major institutions in Southern California. She and her half-brother E. W. Scripps, E.W. Scripps creat ...
, designed by the noted architect Irving Gill. In the early 1970s, the name changed to the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, focusing the purview on the period from 1950 to the present. In 1990, the museum changed its name to San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, only to change it to Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, after confusion developed between its name and the San Diego Museum of Art. The new name also acknowledged the larger geographic context and the population base of nearly 3 million in
San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its border with Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634; it is the second-most populous ...
, and opened a $1.2-million satellite facility downtown in 1993, further embracing the region. In 1996, a major $9.2 million renovation and expansion of MCASD La Jolla took place, designed by
Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. Together with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped shape the way that ...
of the firm Venturi Scott Brown & Associates. Venturi's addition included four more galleries, doubling the museum's exhibition space to . It also expanded the museum's educational space, storage space, bookstore library and restaurant. It transformed the garden into an outdoor exhibition space for sculpture. In 2007, a $25-million downtown location of the museum was opened, designed by architect Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Mayner Architects, New York. The expansion added of space to the downtown site and increases its exhibition space from about to . At the north end of the building is a three-story structure of corrugated steel and textured glass. It houses curatorial offices, art-handling and storage facilities, an art education classroom, a lecture hall that opens onto a terrace and a boardroom with a view of the harbor. The renovated baggage building is named for Irwin M. Jacobs, founder of the technology company
Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...
, and his wife, Joan. The three-story Modernist structure bears the name of philanthropist and newspaper publisher David C. Copley. In 2014, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego chose architect Annabelle Selldorf to head a $30 million expansion tripling the size of the museum's location in La Jolla. Upon completion, the museum had of gallery space to exhibit the permanent collection, as well as additional space for education. The museum's footprint was expanded to include properties (now residential but owned by the museum) on both sides of the institution, and the space that previously housed the Sherwood Auditorium was reconfigured as a gallery with exhibit space of approximately .


Collection

The Museum of Contemporary Art has a nearly 5,500-object collection of post-World War II art that includes key pieces by color field painter
Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, col ...
, minimalist sculptor
Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...
and renowned California installation artist Robert Irwin. In 2012, museum received 30 contemporary pieces from the 1950s to 1980s, with artworks from
Piero Manzoni Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo (July 13, 1933 – February 6, 1963) was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced ...
, Ad Dekkers,
Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks a ...
, Jules Olitski and
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mo ...
, as well as California artists
Craig Kauffman Craig Kauffman (March 31, 1932 – May 9, 2010) was an artist who has exhibited since 1951. Kauffman's primarily abstract paintings and wall relief sculptures are included in over 20 museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whi ...
and Ron Davis, from the collection of Vance E. Kondon and his wife Elisabeth Giesberger. As a site-specific installation, Irwin created ''1° 2° 3° 4°'' (1997), consisting of squarish apertures cut into three lightly tinted museum windows so visitors have an unmediated view of the horizon line separating sea and sky and can feel the ocean breeze.


Notable works

* Richard Hunt, ''Linear Peregrine Forms'', 1962 *
Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, col ...
, ''Red Blue Green'', 1963 *
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
, ''Liz Taylor Diptych'', 1963 *
John Baldessari John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a paint ...
, ''Terms Most Usefull…'', 1966-1968 * Helen Pashgian, ''untitled'', 1968-1969 * Maren Hassinger, ''Wallflower'', 1975 * Jack Whitten, ''Chinese Sincerity'', 1974 * John Valadez, ''Pool Party'', 1986 * Lorna Simpson, ''Guarded Conditions'', 1989 * Tschabalala Self, ''Evening'', 2019 * Mely Barragan, ''Black Light'', 2017


Deaccessioning

In May 2021, MCASD sent nine paintings and one sculpture from its collection to auction in New York, selling works by
Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...
,
Conrad Marca-Relli Conrad Marca-Relli (born Corrado Marcarelli; June 5, 1913 – August 29, 2000) was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been rec ...
,
Lorser Feitelson Lorser Feitelson (1898–1978) was an artist known as one of the founding fathers of Southern California–based hard-edge painting. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Feitelson was raised in New York City, where his family relocated shortly after his b ...
and six other postwar American artists for nearly $900,000.Christopher Knight (8 June 2021
Commentary: Art museum endowments soared in the pandemic. So why sell art to pay the bills?
''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''.


Management

MCASD has a permanent endowment fund of over $40 million, and an annual operating budget of approximately $6 million. Annual support comes from a balanced mix of individuals, corporations, foundations, government agencies, and interest earned from the endowment, the majority of which came from a transformational 1999 bequest from Rea and Jackie Axline of more than $30 million. From 1983 to 2016, Hugh Davies steered the museum as director. From October 2016, Kathryn Kanjo became the museum's director and CEO.


References


External links


Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
{{Authority control Art museums and galleries in San Diego Modern art museums in the United States Arts centers in California La Jolla, San Diego 1941 establishments in California Art museums and galleries established in 1941 Irving Gill buildings Contemporary art galleries in the United States Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Buildings and structures completed in 1941