How did the Westport Arts Center splinter into what is now MoCA\CT and the Artists Collective of Westport?
In part 2 of this 4-part series, “06880” culture correspondent Robin Moyer Chung explores some of the important reasons. Click here to read her first story.
Around 2018, the Westport Arts Center (WAC) board and executive director decided to expand, in space and scope.
They searched for larger properties, beyond their cramped Riverside Avenue space, to accommodate their new vision: to become the Museum of Contemporary Art Westport.
WAC member sources for this article say they were not made aware of the search, the new name, or the new mission. Instead, they learned of it from the press release announcing its opening in early fall of that year.
Westport Arts Center, on Riverside Avenue. (Photo/Lynn Untermeyer Miller)
Many members opposed this new Arts Center, and bristled at the announcement’s tone of inclusivity and enthusiasm. Artists accused the WAC board of chasing personal collateral achievement in founding a prestigious “cultural destination,” when they should be supporting WAC’s “founding mission of being a home for local artists.”
According to one WAC member — all of whom requested anonymity, to discuss sensitive details — “In 2019 they abandoned that mission, and essentially kicked its member artists to the curb. The president of its new board told me to my face that he didn’t see the benefit of showing the work of local artists anymore.”
Then-WAC board members I spoke with, who supported MoCA at that time, had a different perspective. They remained committed to the arts, but believed the organization needed to grow in scope to remain financially viable. The existing model, they felt, no longer attracted sufficient audiences or donor support.
Staff members at that time recall the tension. WAC employees were told the organization needed more money. They were asked to work unpaid overtime, and were promised rewards for raising revenue. Those rewards rarely, if ever, materialized, they say.
“Everybody who was there was there because they love art,” said someone familiar with the situation. Yet they felt that love and appreciation no longer mattered.
Despite the tensions, MoCA opened in Martha Stewart’s former television production facility at 19 Newtown Turnpike — on the Norwalk border — in September of 2019.
MoCA\CT, on Newtown Turnpike.
A few rumors rippled through town about the controversy. But only those truly involved knew the details.
Many people were excited to see the new MoCA. I was one of those. We now had a cosmopolitan museum right in our backyard. Whether it was Norwalk or Westport hardly mattered to museum-goers.
The first exhibit at MoCA Westport was by acclaimed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. One of her Infinity Mirror Houses was praised as her 1965 artistic “breakthrough” in 1965, and had become Instagram-famous. The exhibit also included Narcissus Gardens, an installation of pristine mirrored orbs.
It was a stunning, high-profile show. Scores of visitors lined up to witness her work. I recall standing in her mirrored room, door closed, light reflecting and winking off every surface, thinking, “This is in my town?!”
Yet even the savviest among us would have difficulty convincing anyone she was “local” or even “regional.”
Still …
Today — 7 years later — MoCA\CT (as it is now known) is a significant regional museum and tremendous cultural resource. It hosts exhibits from world-class as well as regional artists, and is home to the Heida Hermanns International Music Competition.
2025 Heida Hermanns Piano Competition winner Zhu Wang, at MoCA\CT.
Hermanns — perhaps ironically — was one of the WAC’s greatest benefactors in the ‘80s and ‘90s. A pianist, teacher and philanthropist, and founder of the Connecticut Alliance for Music, she endowed the competition (which began in Westport) in 1972.
Today, the entire staff and most MoCA board members are different from those in 2019.
Much else has changed too. More on that will come in part 3 of this series.
(“06880” regularly covers Westport’s arts scene — and the town’s history. If you enjoy stories like this, please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
