A plea from art critic KnightLAT: Please rethink this plan for LACMA.
opened an elaborate new building at an inflation-adjusted cost of $1,384 per square foot.
This is: The proposed building is smaller than the buildings it will replace, and it cannot be expanded. When it is done, LACMA is done.That is a very big deal. A vote to approve doesn’t just affect the future look of the place. It wrecks the invaluable idea of an encyclopedic art museum. “Our future expansion might be best pursued not on our Wilshire campus,” he wrote, “but rather in the communities throughout Los Angeles where we intend to bring our art collection to future satellite locations.”
Their collective aim — exciting in its audacity, achieved in fits and starts with varying degrees of success — was that LACMA would be the last great encyclopedic museum to be built in the United States, given the rapidly shrinking pool of available major art. Other illustrious American examples — in Boston or Cleveland; St. Louis or New York; Philadelphia; Kansas City, Mo.; Toledo, Ohio; or Chicago — have been at it far longer.
That’s because the planned new building has zero “back of the house” services — no curatorial offices, no conservation studio, no art storage, no library, etc. Like the needless satellites, those essentials will be farmed out. LACMA will be tied to the ongoing annual expense of paying commercial rents off-site, all while servicing the project’s hefty debt load over coming decades.
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