The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which has been battered in recent months by the departures of board members critical of the institution's direction, is expected to announce Wednesday that it has elected Ari Emanuel, the agent and Hollywood power broker, to its board.
The move â€" which comes at the same time as the re-election of a former board member, Maurice Marciano, a prominent art collector and a founder of the Guess clothing line â€" is intended as a signal by the museum that it is trying to broaden its base of support in the Los Angeles establishment beyond that of Eli Broad, the billionaire collector who saved the museum from financial ruin in 2008.
Mr. Emanuel, co-chief executive of the William Morris Endeavor agency, is not known as an art collector and is not deeply involved in the Los Angeles art scene.But he has been active in P.S. Arts, a nonprofit organization that works to bring art educa tion programs to Southern California schools, and he has also helped the museum establish MOCAtv, a dedicated YouTube art channel that began operating on Monday. Mr. Marciano, who served on the board for a few months in 2008 but left along with other trustees as the museum's finances worsened, has donated important works to the museum's collection over the past two years.
The new trustees still leave the board â€" which has been deeply involved with the careers of living artists since it opened in 1983 â€" without any artist members, after John Baldessari, Catherine Opie, Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha resigned in July, saying they believed that the museum's director, Jeffrey Deitch, was taking the museum too far in a pop-culture direction.
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