The Museum of Contemporary Art

March 15, 2001

The Museum of Contemporary Art has this new ad campaign running out here. The MOCA homepage is the only place I can find an example. The basic conceit is that it’s just black text on white, describing an object like a museum card.

For example, this would be on the side of a bus:

Moving Bus, 2001
Metal, glass, rubber wheels. People with exact change.
On loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art,
Los Angeles.

That’s not a very good example, but you get the point. Everything can be art, including you! It’s clever and witty and makes people wink and laugh and go “oh, I get it.”

Unfortunately, it strikes me as exactly the kind of ad that contemporary art does not need. Off putting and exclusionary, it’s an ad that’s attractively only to those already going to MOCA anyway.

There’s nothing to embrace new visitors or people that don’t understand modern art to be more than the big pieces of twisted metal outside their office buildings.

I think I’m too sensitive to this sort of thing because I follow the comics industry. Comics, for those who don’t know, are in a downward spiral because they’re losing their core audience (which is slowly growing up). Strangely, instead of trying to entice new readers into the fold, they keep shoveling stuff out to the people who are already reading, expecting them to read more. I don’t understand it either, and this MOCA campaign just struck me as the same thing.

I’m done.

Posted in Eratta