The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles has named Jonathan Abbott, the former president and CEO of the Boston-based public broadcasting group GBH, as its new director and CEO. The museum announced the appointment on Thursday, and Abbott begins in the role today.

The choice installs a leader whose professional background lies outside the art world — an unconventional move for a major American museum that, like most of its peers, has typically promoted directors well known to industry insiders.

Abbott fills a post held on an interim basis by curator Ann Goldstein, who took over after Johanna Burton departed in 2025 to lead the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia. He is the seventh person to lead MOCA since 2008, an institution that has cycled through directors at a striking rate. Philippe Vergne left in 2018, shortly after Helen Molesworth was fired as chief curator. Klaus Biesenbach exited in 2021, having initially shared the top job with Burton.

Abbott led GBH from 2007 until 2022, the year he resigned. The organization helps distribute well-known PBS programs including Masterpiece and Frontline, giving him more than a decade of experience running a mission-driven public media institution.

In a statement, Abbott framed his appointment in civic terms. "I want to help bring broader support and audiences to work that is urgent and thought-provoking," he said. "Los Angeles is one of the world's most vibrant cultural centers, with an extraordinary sense of possibility. I grew up thinking of cultural institutions as public places that belonged to everyone. MOCA was built here by artists and civic leaders, and I'm energized by the opportunity to help it remain deeply of this community and for this community."

MOCA board chair Carolyn Clark Powers praised the hire in equally expansive terms. "Jon is a builder of mission-driven institutions and a deeply collaborative leader who understands that great creative work depends on trust, resources, discipline, and a clear sense of purpose," she said in a statement. "He brings the experience and imagination to help MOCA extend its reach, deepen its relationship with Los Angeles, and give artists and curators the strongest possible platform for their ambitious work. As we look toward our 50th anniversary in 2029, I can think of no better partner for this next chapter."

Abbott inherits an institution that has recently found critical footing. Under Goldstein's interim leadership, MOCA opened what may count as its most widely acclaimed exhibition in recent history: "MONUMENTS," co-organized with the Brick, which presented decommissioned Confederate monuments alongside works by contemporary artists responding to them directly or obliquely.

The appointment signals how MOCA's board views the director's job ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2029: less a curatorial mandate than a test of institutional building, audience growth and civic anchoring in Los Angeles.