The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is thrilled to announce that it has acquired Kara Walker’s monumental sculpture Unmanned Drone (2023), currently on view in the landmark exhibition MONUMENTS at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and The Brick. In addition, over the course of 2025, MOCA expanded its renowned permanent collection with the addition of 158 works by 106 artists.
Ann Goldstein, Interim Maurice Marciano Director, stated: “With the acquisition of Unmanned Drone, we are honored to steward this epic and historic sculpture by Kara Walker, which is at the core of our acclaimed current exhibition, MONUMENTS. A searing and crucial statement about the legacy of the post-Civil War United States, it is a profound work for this moment–and for the ages. This sculpture caps a year of extraordinary growth for MOCA’s collection in 2025, welcoming in works by artists with both longstanding and newly developed connections to the museum. Together, these acquisitions reflect our belief that our collection must be both responsive to the present and enduring for the future. MOCA extends its deepest gratitude to our Trustees and the many generous supporters who made these gifts and purchases possible.”
Major works by Jacqueline Humphries, Mike Kelley, Julie Mehretu and Nairy Baghramian, Shizu Saldamando, and Mary Weatherford were added to the collection in 2025. The acquisitions feature 50 artists new to the collection, including Jonathas de Andrade, Leila Babirye, Meriem Bennani, Paul Chan, Cynthia Daignault, Ali Eyal, Sawako Goda, Yaron Michael Hakim, Kate Mosher Hall, Suzanne Jackson, Nicole Miller, and Ulla Wiggin, among others.
Several acquisitions were featured in recent exhibitions or were made by artists with important connections to the institution. These include a significant environmental sculpture by Olafur Eliasson that was part of the artist’s recent Geffen exhibition OPEN; work by Takako Yamaguchi, who was the subject of a MOCA Focus exhibition in 2025; an important media installation by Paul Pfeiffer, Red Green Blue (2022), co-acquired with the Brooklyn Museum of Art; a key Mike Kelley installation from the “Day Is Done” series, hitherto not represented in MOCA’s collection; works by Cynthia Daignault and Shizu Saldamando that were standouts in Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art; and a suite of pencil drawings by Henry Taylor, the artist’s earliest extant works of art, which featured in his 2022 retrospective.
MOCA’s acquisition of Walker’s Unmanned Drone extends this tradition of bringing important exhibited works into the collection. Walker’s work is a centerpiece of the acclaimed MONUMENTS exhibition, currently on view at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and The Brick. Called “brilliant” by the Los Angeles Times, the “standout achievement of MONUMENTS” by New York Times, and “the artwork of the year” by Vanity Fair, Unmanned Drone is a radical reimagining of Charles Keck’s 1921 bronze monument to the Confederate general “Stonewall” Jackson, which stood in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a century before it was decommissioned by the city in 2021. The original monument, depicting Jackson on his horse “Little Sorrel,” was then re-deeded to the Los Angeles non-profit The Brick, which had proposed to give the bronze to Walker for her creation of a new work of art, becoming Unmanned Drone. Walker’s sculpture is a monstrous assemblage of man and horse, turning a once-heroic commemoration of the Lost Cause into a visceral, yet deeply considered reflection on questions of authorship and American history and myth.
“The expansion of MOCA’s collection this year reflects a sustained and deeply collaborative effort to think critically about what it means to build a museum collection in the twenty-first century,” said Clara Kim, Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs. “With the remarkable support of our Trustees and patrons, we have been able to acquire works that not only fill important historical gaps but also advance conversations about contemporary art, locally and globally.”
Many of these acquisitions were made possible through the extraordinary and continued engagement of the museum’s Trustees and supporters, both long-standing and more recent. Trustee Kathi Cypres and Gary Cypres gave seven works, including historical works on paper by Robert Heinecken, William Leavitt, and Mariko Mori; Trustee Susan Gersh and David Gersh donated works by Christopher Williams and Elizabeth Murray; former Trustee Shari Glazer provided funds for the purchase of a Hilary Pecis painting; Trustee Karyn Kohl donated a painting by Alex Israel; Trustee Margaret Morgan and Wesley Phoa donated a work by Susan Silton; Trustee Sean Parker and Alexandra Parker generously contributed funds for the museum’s first acquisitions of works by Hayley Barker and Takako Yamaguchi, as well as for Jacqueline Humphries’s monumental painting JH123 (2024) and a free-standing painting by Julie Mehretu built into a frame apparatus designed by Nairy Baghramian; Trustee Steven Rice and Gary Steele gifted thirteen works by Mark Bradford, Sam Gilliam, Shara Hughes, and Sigmar Polke, among others; Trustee Pete Scantland and Michelle Scantland made the purchase of a major Cynthia Daignault work possible; The Estate of Chara Schreyer, former MOCA Trustee, donated works by Paul Chan, Nicole Miller, and Rosemarie Trockel; and Founding Trustee and former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs donated twenty works, by Walter Price, R.H. Quaytman, Ulla Wiggin, Diane Simpson, and others. Longtime MOCA supporters Alan Hergott and Curt Shepard donated six works, including Passerby (1996) by Jeff Wall, one of the artist’s most important photographic light-boxes. Moreover, we are grateful to Ron and Lucille Neeley for gifting works by Waltercio Caldas, Iran do Espirito, Yishai Jusidman, and Udomsak Krisanamis.
The acquisition of Walker’s Unmanned Drone was made possible by a gift of Beth Swofford by exchange.
Funds generated from the museum’s three acquisition committees were also key to MOCA’s acquisitions. The Acquisition and Collection Committee was co-chaired by Trustees Kathi Cypres and Chris Walker in 2025. The Emerging Art Fund is co-chaired by Jennifer Hawks Djawadi and Corinne Opman. The Drawings and Photography Committee is co-chaired by Trustee Margaret Morgan and Beth Karmin.
Additional donations of artworks or supporting funds were made by: Olivia Barrett and Patrick Collins; Math Bass; Walead Beshty; Philippe Browning; Betye Monell Burton; Olafur Eliasson; Miree Koo Frick; Gail and Tony Ganz; Jordan S. Goodman; Lyle Ashton Harris; Julia and Kevin Hartz; Karen Hillenburg; Gabrielle Humphrey and Bradley Rothenberg; Richard Jackson; D’Lynda Kaplan; Dee Kerrison; Liana Krupp; The Kourosh Larizadeh & Luis Pardo Collection; Adam Lindemann; Dina Liu; Joseph and Deborah Mannis; Janet Mohle-Boetani; the Mohn Family Trust; Ivan Moskowitz; Matt Mullican; Jolie Nahigian; Ramtin Naimi; Viet-Nu Nguyen; Amy Oppenheim; Luis Pardo, Heather Podesta; Charlie Pohlad; Carolyn Clark Powers; Sue and Al Ravitz; Steve and Shari Roden Family Trust; Andrea Rosen Gallery; Marc Selwyn Fine Art; Thomas Solomon and Kimberly Mascola; Beth Swofford; Paulo Vieira; Vielmetter Los Angeles; and Gina and Dexter Williams.
To view the complete list of 2025 acquisitions, please click HERE.
Image courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art
