LOS ANGELES — After four years in the job and two months of intense speculation about his employment status, Philippe Vergne has confirmed that he is leaving his post as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, according to a statement from the museum.

The statement says that the museum board and Mr. Vergne “have mutually elected not to renew Mr. Vergne’s contract when it expires in March 2019.” (He had a five-year contract.) Combined with its chief curator leaving in March, this exit creates a power vacuum at the museum, which has already reinvented itself more than once over the last decade.

The museum has an unusual number of artists on its board, including Catherine Opie, Mark Bradford, Mark Grotjahn, Barbara Kruger and John Baldessari, and several are now taking an active role in the leadership-planning process. “A search committee for a new director has been formed, and there are artists from the board on that committee,” the museum spokeswoman, Sarah Stifler, confirmed. “Artists plural,” she noted.

Mr. Vergne, 52, had replaced Jeffrey Deitch, a New York gallerist whose tenure leading the museum, following its 2008 financial crisis, was scrutinized and frequently controversial. Mr. Vergne, who is French-born, seemed to be a stabilizing presence. A likable leader, he rebuilt staff from a low of 42 full-time employees in 2014 to a total of 60 today.