Читать книгу Museum Practice - Группа авторов - Страница 57

The metropolitan amalgamation of Toronto and the collapse of Livent meant change for the Centre and for the Gallery. First came branding: the Centre was renamed the Toronto Centre for the Arts, and the Art Gallery of North York became the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA). While the ownership of the collection and governance of the Gallery had technically always remained under the control of the City, the shift in circumstances left the Gallery somewhere between being an arm’s-length institution and a line item in the City’s cultural budget. While the City had always been in charge of funding the Gallery, without the Livent surcharge funds, the new MOCCA needed direct funding from the City to survive. Without Livent in the middle, the City also was now directly responsible for the Gallery.

For the 1998–1999 season the City underwrote the costs of concerts, exhibitions, maintenance, and salaries at the Centre, but grappled with the Centre’s and the Gallery’s fate for 2000 and beyond. An ad-hoc “Save MOCCA” committee anticipated forthcoming struggles, acknowledged that ultimately MOCCA needed to be its own entity, and began to petition City Council and raise funds for exhibitions.

This early fight for independence proved successful, and by February 1999 the committee produced a petition of 1300 signatures in favor of keeping MOCCA. Throughout the year it raised enough momentum and funds to convince the City that MOCCA was a worthy cause. Its success culminated that September when MOCCA successfully opened a major retrospective exhibition. In a letter to the committee, the City Hall Culture Commissioner wrote: “I cannot stress enough the important role … the ad-hoc committee [has] played in providing a focus that is specific to MOCCA and its future … I encourage you to continue this work.” Another official in the culture division commended MOCCA: “It has forced itself to separate from the [NYPAC and] to define itself. And it has brought people and money. You know, when people commit money, that’s when politicians sit up and take notice” (Ross 1999, 62). Following this effort the ad-hoc committee disbanded, morphing into an Advisory Board, and MOCCA began reporting to both the NYPAC board and the City, ushering in MOCCA’s transition over the next decade into what we have called a “civil society museum.”