Chicago on Lucas: Regrets, Trollbait, Sour Grapes
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| Rendering of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on Chicago lakefront (Ma Yansong/MAD Architects) |
As the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art nears completion in Los Angeles, the project has again become a topic of debate in Chicago. George Lucas' recent appearance at Comic-Con prompted the Chicago Tribune to run an editorial lamenting the loss of the museum to L.A.: "This was a Midwestern mistake for the ages."
Not everyone is buying that. Tribune reader Scott H. Kenig wrote: "Lucas calling his decades long endeavor 'a temple to the people's art' is laughable. It's a temple to his outsize ego." Kenig took the opportunity to revive a few old stereotypes about Southern California. "Chicago did not fail to understand what Lucas meant by 'narrative art.' Lucas failed to understand that Chicago's lakefront is not a theme park like Disneyland, which is more aptly suited for his namesake museum."
Elsewhere there's a long Reddit thread relitigating Chicago's handling of the matter. A few comments, pro and con:
"Glad it’s in LA!💯"
"Chicago can do without George Lucas flopping his penis onto our lakefront. If he is gonna go on the cheap and go elsewhere, then the motives are apparent."
"How dare a wealthy person build a museum on the checks notes museum campus filled with museums built by wealthy people."
"FWIW, George Lucas' collection is one of the country's most significant assemblages of narrative art. Characterizing it as 'Star Wars' is missing the point."
[Responding to the above] "No, it's not. You're giving Lucas far too much credit."
"Hated that idea for the museum. Chicago wasn't Lucas's first choice. SF was and they didn't want it. He finally went with LA where they broke ground in JAN 2018, and it is still not complete... Chicago's weather would have made for even more delays."
"It just seems too random and niche for an area so precious in my opinion.… If they would build a museum for a film director make it John Hughes…"
"Hey, here's a picture of the parking lot we saved by fighting off that museum -
Comments
If we could work out a trade, I would give them the Lucas Museum in exchange for one of the following: Sunday, Paris Street, Bedroom in Arles, or Nighthawks. When you have paintings like that, you can afford to be picky.
--- J. Garcin
If I were a European in the late 1800s or early 1900s, I'd have perceived the US the way various coastal Americans view "flyover" country.
I watched a video about William Randolph Hearst traveling hundreds of miles north to central California to build his huge estate. On a hard-to-reach mountain top, no less. Back then, metro LA was so modest and remote in its own right (San Francisco less so), that 240 miles to its north to me would have been like traveling to the Amazon or South Pole. Yet both good and bad trends evident today were still somehow evident decades ago too.
Thomas Jefferson predicted the growth of the US that greatly underestimated just how many people by the late 1800s, etc, would actually populate the West. Back then, that's what now is Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, etc.
People and places evolve (or not) in ways both predictable or unexpected. As another example, LA's signature industry (film, TV and entertainment), going back over 100 years, has gone downhill in the past 10 years. It's occurring decades since people fled the Eastern US in order to avoid legal restrictions imposed by Thomas Edison and his patents on movie equipment.
As for the Lucas Museum, it likely will be treated like a bigger version of Laguna's annual Festival of the Arts. Or the AMPAS museum or Disneyland. For both good and bad.
I still have no idea what a "narrative art" museum is and I'm not sure anyone else does even at this point. But I'm sure the direction and scope will evolve and adapt if they need to, as all museums do. I can image the Lucas being dedicated to graphic novels, comic strips, and film storyboards and shows focusing on Eyvind Earle or Robert Crumb or Guillermo Del Toro. (I just don't know where Frida Kahlo and Pieter Brueghel the Younger fit into that).