LOS ANGELES, CA – Today, 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.
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.
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.
The full list of artists whose work MOCA acquired in 2025 includes: Jonathas de Andrade, Ida Applebroog, Leila Babirye, Hayley Barker, Hernan Bas, Math Bass, Jose Bedia, Meriem Bennani, Frank Benson, Walead Beshty, Mark Bradford, Nancy Buchanan, Waltercio Caldas, Leda Catunda, Paul Chan, Sarah Crowner, Cynthia Daignault, Aria Dean, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Ida Eckblad, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Ericksson, Ali Eyal, Urs Fischer, Günther Förg, Llyn Foulkes, Tom Friedman, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Vanessa German, Sam Gilliam, Sawako Goda, Sayre Gomez, Andreas Gursky, Yaron Michael Hakim, Kate Mosher Hall, Lyle Ashton Harris, Robert Heinecken, Al Held, Thomas Hirschhorn, Shara Hughes, Jacqueline Humphries, Nathan Hylden, Alex Israel, Richard Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Tomashi Jackson, Larry Johnson, Yishai Judisman, Mike Kelley, KING COBRA, Jutta Koether, Udomsak Krisanamis, Robert Kushner, Sung Neung Kyung, An-My Lê, William Leavitt, Judith Linares, Robert Longo, Yolanda Lopez, Hugo McCloud, Tala Madani, Mike Mandel, Dashiell Manley, Tony Marsh, Julie Mehretu and Nairy Baghramian, Wardell Milan, Nicole Miller, Hendl Helen Mirra, Mariko Mori, Robert Moscowitz, Matt Mullican, Elizabeth Murray, Dennis Oppenheim, Hilary Pecis, Elizabeth Peyton, Paul Pfeiffer, Sigmar Polke, Walter Price, R.H. Quaytman, Loïc Raguenes, Steve Roden, Sterling Ruby, Shizu Saldamando, Iran do Espirito Santo, Wilhelm Sasnal, Arlene Shechet, Gedi Sibony, Susan Silton, Diane Simpson, Randi Malkin Steinberger, Walter Swennen, Henry Taylor, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Jeff Wall, Michael Ward, Mary Weatherford, LaMonte Westmoreland, Ulla Wiggen, Christopher Williams, Sue Williams, Katharina Wulff, Takako Yamaguchi, and Flora Yukhnovich. Kara Walker’s Unmanned Drone was acquired in February 2026.
