L.A.’s Contemporary-Art Museum Taps Head of N.Y. Art Foundation as Director

Looking eastward for leadership for the second time in four years, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has named Philippe Vergne, head of New York’s Dia Art Foundation, as its new director, reports The New York Times.

Mr. Vergne emerged from a six-month search that followed the departure of Jeffrey Deitch, the former New York art dealer who left the modern-art institution known as MOCA three tumultuous years into a five-year contract.

A native Frenchman with extensive curatorial and administrative experience in the United States and Europe, Mr. Vergne has led Dia since 2008. The foundation has a reputation for taking artistic risks and struggling financially. It drew art-world criticism in the fall for putting several significant pieces from its collection up for auction to fund acquisitions.

The appointment follows MOCA’s announcement last week that it had hit a $100-million fundraising target to bolster its endowment, which trustees said would yield millions of dollars a year in interest income and stabilize the museum’s chronically troubled finances.