Forty years since its founding in 1979, MOCA has built one of the most legendary permanent collections in the world—a continually growing archive that reflects historical depth, recent experimentation, global awareness, and an outlook significantly informed by its home in Los Angeles. To mark the museum’s 40th anniversary, this exhibition presents a selected topography of artworks that speak to the diversity and prescience of MOCA’s collecting over the past four decades. With special emphasis on works associated with the museum’s remarkable history of exhibitions, The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection shows the collection as a changing, mutating landscape of developments in contemporary art and curatorial focus, as well as the social and cultural backdrops that inform them. Featuring a diverse range of artists long- and newly-associated with the museum, the exhibition reflects a belief that MOCA’s histories and futures have always been multiple, ambitious, precious, and unique.

The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection is organized by Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator, with Rebecca Lowery, Assistant Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.