MOCA Grand Avenue & The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.
Based on MOCA's world-renowned permanent collection and supplemented by key loans from local artists and collectors, The Artist's Museum showcased major contemporary artworks produced by LA artists from 1980 to 2010. A focused examination of the complexity and importance of West Coast artistic practice over the past thirty years, this exhibition assembled over three hundred objects in a wide range of media by one hundred and forty-six artists and was installed across both MOCA Grand Avenue and The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. A lobby commission from Jim Isermann introduced the MOCA Grand Avenue installation, comprising a mural of X-shaped vinyl decals in the building exterior’s colors. Other highlights included the MOCA premiere of Doug Aitken's Electric Earth (1999); Mike Kelley’s major installation Pay for Your Pleasure (1999); Thomas Houseago's monumental sculpture Sprawling Octopus Man (2009); and a performance by Vaginal Davis.
The Artist's Museum was organized by Rebecca Morse, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.