The new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is a Rorschach test for the value of mass culture, the future of Los Angeles and the legacy of founder George Lucas. Its arrival also happens to highlight LACMA’s epic flop of a main new exhibition hall, the David Geffen Galleries building, which debuted across town four months ago.
LACMA’s failures, involving substantial public money, constitute serious lapses. Its director Michael Govan sits on the Lucas Museum’s board. Lucas’ wife, the prominent executive Mellody Hobson, who was a driving force on his project, is in turn a LACMA board member. Govan might prevail on Lucas to join as well, as an idiosyncratic and dyspeptic if public-minded voice. Perhaps Lucas could replace one of the seats still somehow held by the moguls Casey Wasserman and Steve Tisch, who of late have each had to relinquish ownership from their respective business enterprises following revelations of their connections to the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
LACMA spent a reported $724 million on its building. Geffen ponied up $150 million of that cost, conferring naming rights, while L.A. County taxpayers contributed $125 million and extended $300 million in credit. The rest came from private donors. For his part, Lucas put down a reported billion dollars for his own endeavor.
