MOCA Facility Delays Reopening : Art: Temporary Contemporary will stay shut until next August. Museum official denies closing was prolonged to save money.

The reopening of the Temporary Contemporary, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s popular Little Tokyo annex that had been projected to reopen this fall, has been pushed back a year to August, 1995, museum officials will announce today, bringing the total time behind sealed doors to three years.

The multidisciplinary showcase for arts on the cutting edge was closed in June, 1992, to accommodate construction of the adjacent First Street North project, a city-owned office, housing and retail complex. The museum closed after “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s,” because the facility expected its utilities to be cut off and parking garage excavation begun around the annex, but rezoning held up the work, and with the drop in the real estate market and the change in administration, First Street North was sent back to city staff to assess less costly options. The project is expected to go before the City Council later this month.

MOCA officials, under pressure from trustees, have decided not to wait for First Street to be resolved before reopening.

A source close to the museum said that while First Street prompted the Temporary Contemporary’s closing in the first place, MOCA officials kept it closed longer than might have been needed to save money. The facility costs about $500,000 a year to operate.

“I think there’s a lot of money saved by having it closed,” the source said. “The tragedy is the space has been unused for all that time, and so much of the permanent collection is unseen.”

MOCA Director Richard Koshalek denied that the museum’s doors stayed shut because of money.

“If you look at the museum’s audited statements, until we shut down the Temporary Contemporary we never had a deficit,” he said. “We didn’t shut it down for financial reasons, but because the project was going to move ahead. There was a cost difference in closing the TC, there’s no way of denying that, but it’s not that significant.”

Koshalek told The Times last January that the Temporary Contemporary would reopen this fall if First Street were not approved. He now admits that some museum trustees “feel we waited too long to reopen.”

He said the reopening was delayed until next year to allow time to raise funds; produce a catalogue for “1965-1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art,” a multidisciplinary history of Conceptual art that opens at the space in October, 1995; accommodate the schedules of the 50 artists in that show, and prepare the facility for reopening.

The Temporary Contemporary needs to be cleaned and repainted, and its doors need to be unsealed, the security and lighting systems upgraded and the ticket booth moved. The bookstore will also be expanded with outside access so it can remain open when the museum is closed.

The reopening “didn’t have to be that far off, but we felt it’s more appropriate to open in the fall than the summer,” Koshalek said. “The art season begins in the fall.”

The facility will reopen Aug. 30, with “Action/Occupation,” a program of works by New York-based choreographer Elizabeth Streb and her company Ringside. Performances will run until Sept. 10.

For the program, MOCA commissioned Streb to create a new work, “Echo,” which will use the Temporary Contemporary’s interior as an art object along with a 20-foot wall of sheet metal. The company will also perform other works by Streb that use the skylights and airspaces of the building.

“She’s like a living sculpture,” said MOCA curator Julie Lazar. “She takes her cues from architects and designers.”

Streb’s commission evokes memories of the Temporary Contemporary’s opening in 1983, when Lucinda Childs choreographed a work that also bowed to the architecture of the Frank Gehry-renovated building. Both choreographers were chosen because they reflect the space’s interdisciplinary spirit, Lazar said.

“1965-1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art” will run from Oct. 8, 1995, through Jan. 7, 1996, returning the Temporary Contemporary to full exhibition programming.