Molesworth joins MOCA from the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (photo © John Kennard)

LOS ANGELES — As reported on Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times, Helen Molesworth, the main curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, has been fired. When she was hired in 2014 by then-new museum managing director Philippe Vergne, the movement was seen by many as the first step in getting the institution back on rail after a long decline. The museum had weathered a major crunch nether the leadership of previous manager Jeffrey Deitch, which saw the untimely resignation of curator Paul Schimmel in 2012 after 22 years on the chore. "Hiring Molesworth is a further sign that Philippe Vergne, who became director in March, is setting the transport to correct after the tumultuous Jeffrey Deitch era," Sarah Cascone wrote at the time in Artnet.

During her tenure, Molesworth was praised for supporting women artists and artists of colour, organizing a critically lauded and pop retrospective of the African-American creative person Kerry James Marshall, also as an exhibition of work past Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino, part of the Pacific Standard Fourth dimension: LA/LA initiative.

The announcement of her departure shocked and dismayed many in the Los Angeles fine art world. Artist and MOCA board member Catherine Opie was told by Vergne that Molesworth was fired for "undermining the museum," according to the LA Times, to which she replied, "I think you accept made a terrible mistake."

" I was very excited and rooted for her coming to LA," artist Lari Pittman told Hyperallergic. "I knew her as an artist's curator. Many curators are board-identified or collector-identified. She is that rarity that is creative person-identified….There could be certain aspects of our society that see it every bit undermining, while some that see it as rebuilding and rethinking," he said, referencing Vergne's comments. "It depends on how you look at it. Rethinking the country of our museums is not undermining."

Pittman recently resigned from MOCA'south lath over several issues, including the overall lack of business concern for diversity and the office of erstwhile lath member Steven Mnuchin (Secretarial assistant of the Treasury under Trump), that he said were non addressed when he brought them up.

Lauren Halsey, a young artist who recently opened a site-specific installation at MOCA, echoed Pittman's sentiments about Molesworth'southward commitment to artists, especially those institutionally under-recognized. " I don't sympathize how someone who has been and then deeply invested in fine art, in people of colour, in women, was let go," she told Hyperallergic. "Without her in that location, I have no idea what the show would accept been for me."

Some observers run across Molesworth's ouster as symptomatic of a struggle between her progressive ethics and the condition quo, epitomized past Vergne who curated iii shows of white male artists — Carl Andre, Matthew Barney, and Doug Aitken — since arriving.

" Firing Molesworth seems similar an act of institutional manspreading," artist Micol Hebron told Hyperallergic via email. Through her Gallery Tally project, Hebron has kept track of the gender breakdown of artists represented by dozens of galleries. "We accept seen three loftier-level women in the arts fired recently (Helen Molesworth at MoCA, Laura Raicovich at the Queens Museum, and María Inés Rodriguez at the Musée d'Art Contemporain in Bordeaux) — each for being 'too'-something; too political, too outspoken, besides feminist, too invested in diversity."

Despite the framing of Molesworth's go out in these terms, some MOCA insiders took effect with this characterization, describing her as a talented and ambitious curator, only likewise as a boss and colleague who created a toxic environs. They paint Vergne as a hands-off museum manager who was generally supportive of Molesworth.

"This is not an issue of gender inequality similar Christopher Knight painted it," a former MOCA employee who wished to remain bearding told Hyperallergic, referring to the LA Times art critic. "She did not get fired because she is a woman."

"At starting time, it was a huge relief to accept her. She said all the correct things about getting the place organized and doing things properly that had been haphazard before. She was clearly a brilliant curator, and her strong feminist and multicultural phonation was perfectly on point," David Bradshaw, the sometime Technical Managing director for Exhibitions at MOCA, told Hyperallergic via e-mail. "I was the last of a particular group of people that she targeted for removal from the moment she arrived — long-time staff whose personalities rubbed her the wrong mode. At that place wasn't any rhyme or reason to her condemnation of these people, she just latched on to them and assaulted them psychologically and emotionally until they either quit or were beaten downward with lists of made missteps to justify their labelling every bit inept and fired … I worked at MOCA for 28 years until Helen fired me a year and a one-half ago."

Other sources Hyperallergic contacted spoke of the retirement of Alma Ruiz, a longtime MOCA curator who left shortly later Molesworth and Vergne arrived. " The optics on Molesworth'southward dismissal are bad, just too confusing. It is important to tie this conversation into the 'retirement' of Alma Ruiz, a senior curator who had been with the institution for three decades," ane prominent local curator told Hyperallergic, who asked to remain anonymous. "The public appearance is that Ruiz was pushed out by the new manager and around the fourth dimension of Molesworth coming on board. While it may be like shooting fish in a barrel to paint the 'creative differences' between Vergne and Molesworth equally ane of the director favoring baddest white male artists, and the curator wanting to create a more than inclusive platform for women and artists of colour, what tin be said about the urged retirement of the long-term senior curator of color, who had been doing that work all along?"

Matt Gleason, founder of the gallery Coagula Curatorial put it more bluntly. " All MOCA personnel present for the firing of Alma Ruiz are on my unforgivable listing, no sympathy for Molesworth, she didn't shed whatever tears for Alma.

"If this was baseball imagine how terrible MOCA would be viewed as a baseball team making a trade. In an urban megalopolis that is 60% Latino, our team, MOCA, traded both the leading American Latina curator of gimmicky art and the greatest curator since Walter Hopps (Paul Schimmel) and what did we get in return? We got an aloof European Carl Andre fan and the blandest white feminist imaginable. There is no hope for an Institutional Globe Series for MOCA whatever fourth dimension soon."

The exact reason for Molesworth'due south firing may never be known, but for many this latest disruption tin can only be viewed as a disappointing sign of deeper structural problems.

"I believe she and Philippe are both visionaries simply ending her tenure in this fashion is a sign of something bigger that is wrong in the institution," Connie Butler, Chief Curator of the Hammer Museum, told Hyperallergic via e-mail. "I can only hope that MOCA will find its footing and regain the confidence of its audience and constituencies."

Matt Stromberg is a freelance visual arts author based in Los Angeles. In addition to Hyperallergic, he has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, CARLA, Apollo, ARTNews, and other publications. More by Matt Stromberg