When is an artwork museum not an artwork museum? Amongst myriad potential solutions is that this one: When it’s the Joshua Tree Artwork Museum.

JTAM is a stunning, even fanciful challenge on the dusty fringe of a barren strip of freeway within the San Bernardino County desert. Straight throughout from the native Chamber of Commerce’s “Welcome to Joshua Tree” signal on the Twentynine Palms Freeway, a makeshift billboard declares “JTAM” in tall black letters set over a broad strip of limpid blue. The printed, V-shaped tarp is definitely legible to drivers touring to and from a Joshua Tree Nationwide Park guests heart.

Nevertheless, aside from that just lately erected signal — plus an internet site, social media presence and a “community outreach project” named Alien Robotic Museum at Artwork Queen, a close-by bohemian cluster of galleries and memento shops — JTAM doesn’t exist. And it could by no means.

That presumably contains the plan to construct a museum, sculpture backyard, visiting artist residences and an area for neighborhood engagement on a 2.5-acre parcel of vacant land dotted with scrub not removed from the nationwide park. A signed 2023 settlement settlement with the Shane Townley Arts Basis, the group behind the challenge, known as STAF within the state’s Division of Justice paperwork, is unambiguous in disallowing the present museum challenge.

The Alien Robotic Museum — ARM — is a store billed as a Joshua Tree Artwork Museum “community outreach program.”

(Christopher Knight/Los Angeles Occasions)

The muse agreed to hunt written permission from the lawyer normal “prior to reviving STAF, starting a new organization or soliciting or holding charitable assets.” Fines of $8,000 had been waived with the pledge.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Nicole Kennedy, the lawyer within the state’s registry of charitable trusts who issued the order and likewise signed the July settlement, declined to remark. The Occasions reviewed the registry’s complete database of paperwork associated to the case. Written permission to renew STAF actions just isn’t amongst them.

STAF was based in Orange County as a California nonprofit in 2013. The cease-and-desist order was issued because of a failure to file the required annual state monetary reviews on its charitable actions.

Federally, the inspiration’s tax returns for calendar 12 months 2024 declared greater than $545,000 in contributions and grants. Belongings for the prior 12 months, 2023, are listed at simply over $338,000. The supply of the $207,000 development after the settlement settlement was signed just isn’t recognized.

A public basis is required to file a Schedule A type to indicate the way it qualifies as a tax-exempt charity with the IRS. STAF describes its mission as supporting “creativity and artistic expression,” particularly for youngsters’s artwork training, in addition to helping in offering funds for residing artists. However Schedule A on its 2024 tax return, in addition to these for the earlier two years, as a substitute marks a field that identifies STAF as “a church, convention of churches, or association of churches.”

Reached by telephone, basis president Shane Townley, a painter and Mission Viejo gallery proprietor, mentioned he was unaware of the church designation on the three IRS varieties. (As STAF president, Townley, 52, acquired compensation of $48,000 in 2023 and 2024; no different officers, trustees or workers are recognized on the tax returns.) STAF’s accountant has now ready amended Schedule A information for 2024, 2023 and 2022, deleting the church reference; copies had been supplied to The Occasions.

Reverse the”Welcome to Joshua Tree” signal, a 2.5-acre parcel of land is the meant website for the brand new artwork museum.

(Christopher Knight/Los Angeles Occasions)

A giant entrance web page story in a current Sunday version of the Palm Springs Desert Solar reported that STAF is “actively raising funds to complete the project’s first phase,” which incorporates the design of an eco-friendly dome for use as an artwork exhibition house. Requested concerning the settlement’s prohibitions in opposition to “soliciting or holding charitable assets,” Townley mentioned the printed info was incorrect, and that the inspiration’s lawyer can be working with the lawyer normal’s workplace to revive its lively standing earlier than fundraising begins.

“In fact, our attorney’s going after it right now,” he mentioned.

Joshua Tree is dwelling to a large neighborhood of artists, a number of of them of worldwide standing. It has continued to develop because the pandemic.

The Noah Purifoy Out of doors Museum of Assemblage Artwork was established in 1999 to protect and showcase the ingenious sculpture of the late L.A. artist, who died at 86 in 2004. His work was the topic of “Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada,” a extensively admired 2015 survey exhibition on the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork.

Excessive Desert Check Websites, the previous dwelling and studio of artist Andrea Zittel, hosts site-related artwork commissions and dealing residencies — together with a present one by photographer An-My Lê, a MacArthur Basis fellow. “Andrea Zittel: Critical Space,” a 2007 exhibition at L.A.’s Museum of Modern Artwork, featured her set up sculptures exploring home topics.

Each the Purifoy museum and Excessive Desert Check Websites are a brief drive from the proposed JTAM website on land Townley mentioned he acquired along with his spouse, Yeslin, in 2022. So is the nationwide park’s customer heart, the west entrance to a website that pulls 3 million guests yearly. A brand new artwork museum may make for an added cultural tourism lure, however don’t anticipate one anytime quickly — billboard or not.

An indication on Twentynine Palms Freeway marks the deliberate website of the Joshua Tree Artwork Museum

(Christopher Knight/Los Angeles Occasions)