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Correction: Marciano Art Foundation: In the Nov. 8 Calendar section, an article about the abrupt closing of the Marciano Art Foundation stated that Jamie Goldblatt Manne left her post as the foundation's director in July. Manne departed in March.
About six months before art collector Maurice Marciano and his brother Paul threw open the doors in 2017 to the Marciano Art Foundation in the old Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard, Maurice sat down for an interview to discuss the program for his new exhibition space.
"We don't need another MOCA or Broad or Hammer Museum," he told the Wall Street Journal. "It has to be different, or why do it? We want to be an incubator for artists."
Less than three years later, the plug appears to have been pulled on that incubator.
On Tuesday night, the Marciano Art Foundation laid off nearly six dozen visitor services employees who had been attempting to unionize. The museum then issued a public statement saying that the space would be "closed to the public until further notice." By Wednesday, the museum had issued yet another statement: There are "no present plans to reopen."
Staffers who had announced their intent to unionize decried the shutdown as an illegal union-busting scheme.
"It shows that they would rather shut down a 'public service' institution than raise wages a dime -- or raise pay a dime above minimum wage," said Spencer Longo, who worked in the museum's visitor services department and served on the organizing committee of the Marciano Art Foundation Union.
The museum, in a statement, said the closure was "due to low attendance the past few weeks" and that the foundation would be "closing the current exhibition early on Nov. 6 after a five-month run."
But the story of the Marciano isn't simply the story of a single museum. It is a story about wealth and class and labor in an art world keen to tout itself as a social good.
For Betsy-Ann Toffler, a part-time visitor services associate, the museum's closure calls into question the very purpose of the foundation.
"One might think that the Marcianos have done a valuable...