The battle between the City of North Miami and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is so intense, it got the attention of the Grey Lady.  An article published today in the New York Times, North Miami Fights to Keep Its Art Museum, notes that the museum’s board of trustees “wants to leave this working-class city and merge with the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, its wealthier and more glamorous neighbor.”

While North Miami is not alone in dealing with “complicated public-private partnerships,” unlike clashes in other cities with their municipal museums, the open hostility that MOCA’s board of trustees has toward its host city appears to run deep.  As the article reports, “The debate is particularly fraught in South Florida, because of the sometimes tense relationship between North Miami, which has one of the largest concentrations of Haitians in the United States, and Miami Beach, a haven for vacationing billionaires and college students on spring break.”

Until now I wasn’t even aware that there is a “tense relationship” between the two cities, but obviously the MOCA trustees have a keen interest in fostering one.

In the board’s lawsuit against the city, it claims that the museum should be allowed to break a 2008 “10-year management agreement” declaring that “North Miami had breached it by, among other things, failing to fix the roof, pay [interim director] Mr. Gartenfeld’s salary and provide sufficient security (despite its location, next to Police Department headquarters).”

The City of North Miami then counter sued the board, accusing it “of secretly plotting to make off with North Miami’s cultural patrimony.”  Mayor Lucie Tondreau told the New York Times, “The collection belongs to the city, and they are trying to steal it.”  The city also denies the board’s allegations that it has breached the management agreement.

Interestingly, however, the New York Times article pointedly illustrates the disparity between North Miami and Miami Beach.  “While the Bass Museum is fronted by a blocklong promenade that leads directly to the beach and faces sumptuous hotels, the Museum of Contemporary Art is situated in North Miami’s downtown, near the DaVita Dialysis Center and the Bible Emporium, which sells Creole, French and Spanish translations.”

The article also refers to a pie chart that the Mayor provided to the reporter “showing that nearly 60 percent of North Miami’s 60,000 residents are black, compared with 4.4 percent of Miami Beach’s 90,000 inhabitants.”

Considering that the “27 trustees, primarily philanthropists and collectors who live outside the city” wanted the taxpayers of North Miami to fund a much needed expansion by way of a bond issue instead of raising the capital themselves, they are now claiming that “they made no secret of its desire to leave after the bond proposal failed.”  As late as last December, the trustees “initially played down the reports as rumors,” but two months later in February the planned merger with the Bass Museum was confirmed.

The dueling lawsuits are now in the hands of the Court, which must decide whether the city is entitled to maintain control over MOCA, or if the trustees’ claim that North Miami breached its agreement is valid.  The New York Times noted, however, that “The Museum of Contemporary Art’s building was constructed in 1996 with federal, state and county funds, with an eye to developing cultural institutions in downtown North Miami.  The city established the museum as a nonprofit corporation, in part so that gifts would be tax deductible, and created a board of trustees to operate the museum on its behalf.”

If, in fact, North Miami “established the museum” and “created a board of trustees,” it would seem that, breach or no breach, the city already has control over both the museum and the board.  While the city has a legal obligation to remedy any breach of the terms of the agreement (assuming there are any breaches), it doesn’t appear to me that the board has a legal right to just vacate the premises.  By filing this lawsuit in a desperate attempt to get out of North Miami, the board seems to be grasping at straws.

Obviously, though, that’s a matter for the Court to decide.  In the meantime, a Judge has ordered both parties to enter into mediation in an attempt to work out a settlement “that could include alternatives to a merger with the Bass.”

Reaching a settlement might be nothing short of a miracle.  Especially if, as the New York Times less tactfully pointed out, North Miami is a “working-class city” that can’t possibly compete with “its wealthier and more glamorous neighbor.”

It sure seems to me that the elitist board of trustees obviously no longer wish to honor the museum’s own mission statement, which asserts that it is “dedicated to making contemporary art accessible to diverse audiences — especially underserved populations.”

Especially when serving the underserved population of North Miami “has challenged the Museum of Contemporary Art to maintain its international reputation and relevance in the face of “newer, larger and more glamorous institutions, events and exhibitions in the South Florida area,” [as] the board confessed in its lawsuit.”

Accusing the City of North Miami of breaching its agreement is obviously nothing more than a ruse on the part of the board of trustees for the purpose of increasing the museum’s “relevance” in South Florida’s burgeoning art scene.  Apparently, North Miami is not “relevant” enough, nor does it have enough snob appeal, for their aristocratic tastes.

The board of trustees’ condescending attitude toward the very city that made MOCA relevant in the first place is pure hubris and nothing less.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”