Jarl Mohn makes major donations of contemporary art to three LA museums
Jarl Mohn, the former CEO of NPR and head of E! Entertainment Television has made a major donation of Los Angeles contemporary art to the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The collection, which includes 260 works of art, will be jointly owned and managed by the three institutions. The gift comes from the extensive art collection of Mohn and his wife Pamela Mohn.
Jarl Mohn was CEO of NPR from 2014 to 2019. He sent the E! Channel during the heady growth years for cable, from 1990-1998.
The Mohn collection has largely been collected over the past 19 years. It includes paintings, sculptures and mixed-media works by Los Angeles artists. In addition to the donation, the Mohns will establish an endowment for annual purchases and expenses associated with the continued care and storage of the collection.
The joint effort of the three museums is called the Mohn Art Collective: Hammer, LACMA, MOCA or MAC3 for short. In addition to the Mohns donation, the Hammer Museum plans to expand the MAC3 collection with 80 works previously acquired by the museum through the Made in LA Biennials since 2012. Curators from the three institutions met to make the first joint acquisitions of the collection and unanimously selected 16 works from “Made in LA 2023: Acts of Living.” In total, the MAC3 collection so far includes 356 works of art.
The co-owned collection provides “a groundbreaking model for institutional collaboration and commitment to directly support Los Angeles’ artist communities. The donation will allow the three institutions to actively and collectively acquire works by LA artists on an annual basis, with purchases chosen jointly by curatorial teams from all three museums. Every two years, these acquisitions will emerge directly from future editions of the Hammer Museum’s Made in LA biennial. During the alternating, non-biennial years, curators from the three institutions will work together to identify works for purchase by visiting studios, exhibitions and more to inform their ongoing discussions. The entire collection will be available to any institution for display and a lending program will be prioritized to encourage the exhibition of the works in other museums around the world,” the Museum Troika explained in announcing the Mohn -gift.
The existing Mohn Collection includes works by more than 125 Los Angeles-based artists, including many who have appeared in one of the six editions of Made in LA to date, such as Aria Dean, Rafa Esparza, Lauren Halsey, Luchita Hurtado, Arthur Jafa, Silke Otto-Knapp, Analia Saban, Martine Syms and Kandis Williams. Some items from the donated art collection would be pop culture friendly, featuring works by artists beyond those of previous biennials, including major works by artists Karon Davis, Mark Grotjahn, Rodney McMillian, Cauleen Smith and more.
(Image: “Bloods II,” a 2020 work by Arthur Jafa, included in the Mohns gift)
