UCLA Broad Art Center opens! "LA is one of the great art capitals of the world"

[dragonsky]

L.A. County supervisors place the welcome mat out for George Lucas' museum

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors gathered to vote on whether to officially support bringing George Lucas’ proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to Los Angeles’ Exposition Park.

The symbolic vote, however, was unanimous: Yes.

On Wednesday, leaders from the worlds of Hollywood, museums, educators and nonprofits crammed into the first two rows of a cavernous hearing room to show their support for the project. Among those on hand: DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, L.A. County Museum of Art CEO and Director Michael Govan, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ leader Kerry Brougher, as well as representatives from Exposition Park’s Natural History Museum, California Science Center and California African American Museum and nearby USC, Lucas’ alma mater.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...109-story.html

The next big thing for LA.

[dragonsky]

Plot twists, suspense mark George Lucas' plans for museum in California

After several false starts, Lucas and his art team say they will decide later this month whether to put the museum in San Francisco or Los Angeles, a strategy that has stirred a California rivalry.

"This is the largest civic gift in American history," LA Mayor Eric Garcetti told The Associated Press. "I think Los Angeles is the natural home for it" — a notion that San Francisco officials enthusiastically contest.

Los Angeles has offered Lucas a 7-acre spot in Exposition Park, a sprawling cultural compound that holds three other museums and the Coliseum, home to the LA Rams. It has its own light rail station and is near the main campus of the University of Southern California, where Lucas went to film school.

"A museum should not be cloistered away from the people," LA Mayor Garcetti said. "We don't live life on islands."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...103-story.html

[dragonsky]

Los Angeles will be home to George Lucas' $1-billion museum

The suspense has been as epic as “Star Wars,” but after months of intense speculation, George Lucas’ Museum of Narrative Art on Tuesday chose Los Angeles as its home over San Francisco.

The filmmaker’s personal collection of fine and popular art, including ephemera related to his “Star Wars” franchise, will fill a futuristic-looking new museum planned for L.A.’s Exposition Park, which beat out a competing design for Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The rivalry had pitted the two cities in the competition not only for Lucas’ collection and the tourism it will bring, but also for the thousands of jobs that backers said the project will create.

“It feels like this incredible gift has come home. I always thought Los Angeles was the natural place to spread the vision of George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, to make art and creativity accessible and inspirational to the next generation,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said of the filmmaker and his wife. “It’s a natural place to have this museum in the creative capital of the world and in the geographic center of the city. It’s a banner day for L.A.”

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

[ocman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/a...-director.html


One new rendering of LACMA we haven’t seen before, a close-up bridging over the street. Also, Govan’s opinion on the state of art philanthropy in LA.

[dragonsky]

Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has a provocative vision for his museum and his adopted city.

“There’s not a city in America that will look as different in 30 years as L.A. will look,” Mr. Govan said. “They are tearing down whole city blocks as we are speaking. I love it.”

“It’s changing,” he said. “Don’t you see it before your eyes? Out your window? Since it’s going to change, what’s it going to change into? I’m not sure I know. I am certainly drawn to the fact that each of us is going to have a little impact on it.”

Mr. Govan’s campaign comes as the Los Angeles art world is churning. The Broad Museum, exhibiting Eli and Edythe Broad’s collection of modern art, opened downtown in 2015, and on the other side of the cultural tracks, Hauser & Wirth took over a sprawling old flour mill in the Arts District, turning it into a museum-scale gallery that is already crowded on weekends. This city is awaiting the April opening of a private art museum from Maurice and Paul Marciano, Guess co-founders, in a renovated Masonic Temple in Koreatown. The Santa Monica Museum of Art is moving to the downtown Arts District this fall, with a new name: the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. And George Lucas, the filmmaker, after years of “site wars,” recently announced he would bring his Museum of Narrative Art to Exposition Park and fund the project — about $1 billion — himself.

Mr. Govan said that Los Angeles stood out today as a city where art is being made — as artists flock here to take advantage of the light and the space — rather than a place where it is being shared with the public. “You could argue that there is no city that is more vibrant,” he said. “You may argue there are cities as vibrant — Berlin is very vibrant; New York City outside of Manhattan is very vibrant.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/a...-director.html

[dragonsky]

New House of Blues Anaheim location drops in iconic water tower

While the new House of Blues Anaheim at Anaheim GardenWalk is still under pretty heavy construction just five weeks before its grand opening, the media was welcomed Wednesday morning for a sneak peek at what’s to come as well as witness the placement of a 4-ton steel water tower, the company’s signature icon, atop the new building.

“No House of Blues would be complete without a water tower,” said Ron Bension, president of House of Blues Entertainment.

The previous House of Blues location, dubbed the Mouse House because it was nestled within Downtown Disney, where it opened in 2001, did not include a water tower or a Foundation Room/VIP Club, both staples at the other locations throughout the country.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/m...use-blues.html

[dragonsky]

Hammer Museum announces a big expansion on Wilshire
Just in time for the subway’s arrival to Westwood

In another sign that LA’s art scene is booming, the Hammer Museum in Westwood announced this morning that it will undergo a remodel and expansion, taking over a neighboring tower to give the museum a new presence on Wilshire Boulevard.

UCLA bought the Occidental Petroleum tower last year, and it will use the top floors for offices—but the museum will get the bottom five stories for a big lobby and museum store, plus a new gallery in the space that used to be occupied by City National Bank. That means the Hammer will have a new entrance at the corner of Wilshire and Westwood.

Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan will design the new spaces and “completely reimagine” the existing, boxy building. The Hammer still needs to line up funding, but the project is expected to wrap up by 2020. That’s four years before the subway’s Purple Line is scheduled to reach Westwood with a station on the Hammer’s block.

http://la.curbed.com/2017/1/26/14387...ire-renovation

[ocman]

The Getty museum acquires a nice Parmigianino after the UK export ban expired last friday.