The cutthroat battle between the city of North Miami and the MOCA board of trustees keeps getting more turbulent with each passing day.

As the Miami Herald reported on June 4, 2014, “Last month, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation withdrew a $5 million endowment grant made to MOCA in 2007 due to the dispute. The money was moved to a fund at the Miami Foundation.”   The article cited an email from Knight Foundation spokesman Andrew Sherry, who stated, “It was expressly made to develop cutting-edge contemporary art in Miami-Dade.  We decided the funds needed to be moved in order to preserve the purpose of the grant.”

This just didn’t sit right with me, so I did a little digging.  What I discovered posed a lot more questions than answers.

On January 2, 2008, Bonnie Clearwater, the former Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), signed the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Communities Program Grant Proposal.  The five year term of the $5 million Grant Agreement was for the period of December 10, 2007 through December 31, 2012.  The five million dollars was intended to be held in an interest bearing account, and that “the earnings on these funds must be spent solely for the purpose of this grant,” according to the Agreement.

In the grant application, Ms. Clearwater made, among other things, the following claims:

“The City of North Miami has recognized MOCA’s essential role in the transformation of its downtown into a vibrant arts district” and that this endowment will provide “substantial support for MOCA’s risk-taking exhibitions and multi-discipline programs will insure that the museum will be able to develop as a major attraction to this underserved area.”

“This project will especially help transform the lives of the children of North Miami, a community whose population is currently 1/3 Haitian.  Education of the County’s youth, particularly students from underserved communities is a mission that MOCA shares with the City of North Miami.”

“As the only museum magnet school in South Florida, MOCA will serve over 7,000 students attending North Miami’s public school’s K-12 annually on a continuous basis.  The aim of this new initiative is to increase academic excellence and reduce minority isolation.”

“The museum will monitor and assess our progress in fulfilling our mission to make contemporary art accessible to diverse audiences and underserved populations through innovative programming.“

It seems to me that the purpose of the endowment from the Knight Foundation to MOCA was pretty clear cut.

What’s not so clear cut is why the Knight Foundation didn’t consider MOCA’s “cutting-edge contemporary art” to be “cutting-edge” enough.

I never claimed to be art expert, but exhibits like Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey, for example, look pretty “cutting-edge” to me.

But I’m obviously missing something because the real, ahem, art experts at Knight “withdrew its $5 million” and moved them “to a fund at the Miami Foundation.”

Ironically, as recently as February of this year, the Knight Arts organization, which advertises itself as “A program of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation,” published, MOCA, North Miami to explore cultural impact of burgeoning Nigerian film industry.  This article proudly boasted “With the support of a Knight Arts Challenge grant, MOCA North Miami will present ‘Nollywood: Alternative Expressions in Contemporary Cinema Art,’ a three-day film festival slated for 2016, to examine this significant new artistic phenomena in-depth.”

Only four months ago, both the Knight Foundation and MOCA’s Interim Director and Chief Curator, Alex Gartenfeld sure seemed to believe that this exhibit was “cutting-edge” enough for the museum.  He was quoted as bragging, “MOCA has an international reputation for illuminating new trends in contemporary art and culture, and given the influence Nollywood has on West African and Caribbean audiences, so prevalent in South Florida, this is a wonderful opportunity to be at the forefront of this important cultural exchange.”

It was also “cutting-edge” enough to win a Knights Challenge Grant last May.

Even more ironic is that North Miami’s appointed Director of MOCA, Babacar M’Bow, was instrumental in bringing the Nollywood project to the museum when Bonnie Clearwater was still at the helm.  The fate of Nollywood – and M’Bow’s directorship – both remain to be seen.

Yeah, something doesn’t smell quite right at the MOCA these days.

Even fishier is why the Knight Foundation took its grant money away from MOCA to give it to The Miami Foundation.

One of the non-profit organizations approved by the Miami Foundation is the new darling of the local art world, the up and coming Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM).

Since the Perez just happens to be MOCA’s main competitor in the art community, it would be in the best interest of the Perez to destroy the competition.

In fact, in the board of trustees’ Complaint filed against the City of North Miami, the Plaintiffs allege:

While no one would ever confuse the Miami Herald with Fox News, our local newspaper’s coverage of this battle has been less than “fair and balanced.”  Herald articles appear to paint the City of North Miami in an extremely unfavorable light, even as they seem to give the board of trustees a pass.  Because of the cozy relationship the Herald enjoys with the Knight Foundation, (and also as one of its founding donors), it would certainly be in the best interest of the Herald to continuously downplay the board of trustees’ bullying role in this fiasco.

Apparently, whither the Knight goest, the Herald will follow.

Interestingly, I’ve heard several things that, if true, just give more credence to the conspiracy surrounding the MOCA board of trustees’ sudden allergy to North Miami.

For one, word has it that the MOCA trustee’s appointed Interim Director, Alex Gartenfeld, is actively seeking a position with the Perez Art Museum Miami.  If MOCA simply ceases to exist, that would greatly increase Gartenfeld’s chances to helm PAMM.

I’ve also heard from multiple sources that Alex did his best to put the kibosh on this weekend’s 2014 Annual FLASC Symposium held at the MOCA by sending out a mass email claiming that the Symposium was cancelled.  I have not seen that email, but I’d love to get my hands on a copy.

Alex did, however, publish the following Letter to FLASC Participants:

This “letter” is courtesy of a source, who so aptly phrased it as “more juvenile whining by Alex.”

Methinks the whiner doth protest too much!

The trustees’ outrageously childish behavior, however, didn’t start with Alex.  The original Complaint itself was a “pleading in lengthy storybook paragraphs and captions that read like media headlines,” as spelled out in the City’s response by way of the Defandant’s Motion to Dismiss Complaint, Strike Improper Defendant, and Strike Redundant, Immaterial, Impertinent, and Scandalous Portions of Complaint:

Shockingly, these “scandalous” headlines were included in a Complaint filed by a law firm that bills itself as “Taking on Sophisticated and Complex Cases in Florida and Throughout the Country.”

Because there is nothing more “sophisticated” than emulating The National Enquirer when Enquiring Minds Need to Know!

And finally, one more court document of interest worth reading is the Order on Case Management Conference, which was filed on May 12, 2014, and which specifically states:

Considering the flurry of actions taken by the MOCA board of trustees since that judge’s Order was filed, including but not limited to the refunding of grant money to the Knight Foundation, I’d say the board has maintained anything but the status quo.

Just saying.

So, yeah, something’s really stinking to high heaven at the MOCA.

And I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with fish.

Meanwhile, the Court Ordered mediation is scheduled for tomorrow, June 16, 2014.  As always, I will keep you posted.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”