I wrote recently how the the San Antonio Symphony had to dissolve itself. I proposed that this would be the first of many. I thought for sure the victims would be performing arts organizations which have high operating expenses. But after the San Antonion Symphony, the first Covid victim to hit my inbox is Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. According to The Art Newspaper, they were having problems before Covid hit. I think this will be a common feature of dissolutions from now on—nonprofit arts organizations that were barely surviving before Covid would take a hit during Covid and be unable to dig out from their new situation.
The museum, founded as a roving pop-up venture by local artists as the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, moved into its first permanent space in 1980 in the city’s historic Balboa Building. In 1990 it moved down the block into its current location in the Pasa Nuevo shopping centre (one of the conditions for the mall’s construction was that it had to include a visual arts venue) and in 2013 it changed its name to the Museum of Contemporary Art, expanding its programming to include educational initiatives and securing accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, according to local news site Noozhawk.
Despite its growing ambitions and formalised operations, the MCASB had struggled in recent years to balance its finances. In 2018 it was forced to cancel its main fundraising gala amid a criminal investigation into one of the contractors operating the event, depriving the museum of a potential seven-figure windfall. Records reviewed by the Independent show it lost more than $712,000 in 2016, around $504,000 in 2017, more than $1.2m in 2019 and $1.7m in 2020 as the pandemic hit.
One could imagine them surviving the tough years of 2016-2020, if it hadn’t been for Covid. It would have taken hard work, visionary leadership, and some good luck, but it could have been saved.
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