Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art is hoping to tap into a popular interest in art with a new YouTube channel it's launching in July.
According to The New York Times, the channel will be known as MOCA TV and will fold nicely inside YouTube's plan to become a more prominent provider of quality, curated content. Among the museum's intended programs are a "documentary-style show about street artists; a weekly news roundup to be called the Arts News Network" and much more.
Perhaps most interesting is the plan for an arts-world version of MTV's ever popular "Cribs" series in which artists would reveal their studios and workplaces.
For YouTube's part, it's an unsurprising move. Google, which owns the popular video website, had previously announced it will spend up to $100 million on "low-cost content designed exclusively for the web." The move is widely believed to be a ploy to gobble up some major TV network marketshare.
The Jeffrey Deitch-run museum recently made the news with a November fundraising gala that brought in $2.5 million.
Under Deitch, the Los Angeles institution is hoping to emerge from years of dwindling endowments and competition from the likes of LACMA's robust modern art wing. In a landmark 2008 column, philanthropist Eli Broad decried the lack of a donor class in Los Angeles by reminding the city that "this is not a one-philanthropist town" and pledging $30 million to the museum if other donors stepped up (Broad's foundation donated the sum on the contingency that MOCA remain an independent museum).
So what do you think? Will you watch MOCA TV or do you think the concept is silly?
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Ryan Trecartin would host a show on the new channel. Trecartin has not officially signed on to the project. The article above has corrected this error.