Leibovitz Lenses the Lucas
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| Annie Leibovitz, photo of George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, 2026, for Vogue |
• The Lucas Museum's first gallery will display immersive, hi-res reproductions of the Altimira, Spain, cave paintings (c. 12,000 BC). Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel advised on lighting. That's followed by a hi-res simulacrum of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. On the one hand: Cue the comparisons to Forest Lawn, Disneyland, and "plastic" L.A. On the other hand: The Getty used a partial reproduction of the Sistine Ceiling for its 2020 Michelangelo drawings show, and the Metropolitan has walk-in projections of Vatican stanze for its current Raphael show.
• The Lucas will open with some loans of art. Shown in one of Leibovitz's photos (top of post) is Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With (1964), a loan from the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It shows six-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted to an all-white New Orleans school by U.S. Marshalls. To Rockwell fans, this is proof of his seriousness. As a non-Rockwell fan, I just see it as Rockwell being Rockwell (a magazine illustrator, socially liberal for his time, whose beat included current events). Either way, the loan is a coup for a museum whose scope spans figurative African-American modernism and the white world of mid-century magazine illustration.
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| Archibald Willard, The Spirit of '76, 1912. Sold at Christie's New York, Nov. 30, 2006 |
• Robert Colescott's George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware (1975) is flanked by a small, anonymous copy of Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware and a version of another patriotic potboiler, Archibald Willard's The Spirit of '76 (1912). Like Leutze, Willard is a one-hit wonder dismissed by most historians of American art. The Spirit of '76 is documented in six autograph versions. The 10-by 8-ft original's whereabouts are unknown. The Lucas painting may be the small 1912 repetition sold at Christie's for $1.47 million in 2006. (The width doesn't quite match that given in the Vogue article, but I don't know how rigorous Conde Nast proofreading is.)
• The Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait—the collection's best painting, to card-carrying elitists—used to hang in George and Mellody's bedroom. Friend, fashionista, and Beatles nepo baby Stella McCartney told Vogue: "I'm like, 'You're crazy not to wake up with Frida Kahlo every day—what's wrong with you, Mellody?'"
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| Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser, 1940 |
Comments
> elitists
I wonder how many of them in today's era don't mind things like black-metal wall brackets for white marble friezes, too many gray concrete surfaces or donor walls that list the amount of money contributed by the inscribed names? Or where they confuse rube-sloppy-flaky with cool-hip-funky?
Or they don't mind the former when they judge it (perhaps wrongly or naively) as the latter.
Although people like Michael Govan - who perhaps judge themselves as social populists versus social elitists - will admittedly support something like the Lucas Museum.
Whether elitist or populist, people are more likely to have a bit of rube in them (ie, weak or eccentric judgment) than a bit of da-Vinci-Michaelanglo-Einstein-level sophistication.
So yesterday's rubes may be today's influencers, and yesterday's influencers may be today's rubes. Or: "altogether in the eye of the beholder" taken to its logical (or illogical) extreme.
Lucas makes a good case for narrative art.
It's the case that Levi-Strauss would make.
The article mentions Roland Barthes.
But it's Levi-Strauss who applied the methods of natural history (e.g., taxonomy) to the analysis of myth.
... On that note, I find it ironic that George is critical of "intellectual" art. In the article, he makes a convincing intellectual case for his museum.
--- J. Garcin
> to Forest Lawn,
> Disneyland, and
> "plastic" L.A.
Certain museums are must-see, certain museums are "meh, maybe if we have enough time."
Even though LACMA for over 60 years has been in the latter category, and even though I point out all its "rube" qualities, visiting it to me feels less of a slog than visiting, by contrast, the Louvre----although that's affected by my living in LA, not Paris, etc.
Although LACMA's PR team is pushing the line that opinions about it for the past several weeks have been positive, I'm also seeing more than a few non-must-see or "meh" opinions. But I'll wince less if out-of-town relatives - such as ones I dealt with over 10 years ago - now mention they plan to visit it.
However, if they're accustomed to places like the MFA (Houston) or the DIA - much less the biggest first-tier museums of the US and world - I still won't be surprised if they judge LACMA the way a friend or acquaintance does who's trying to be polite, not really honest.
If LACMA's director and staff were totally skilled and professional, I wouldn't have to second guess them about the following. This Instagram post also came with photos of a temperature gauge used inside the Geffen, and close-up images of the seal at the base of one of the windows.
join_save_lacma's, Instagram:
In the late afternoon sun on a relatively cool day, the west side of the building is radiating high heat in the sun exposed areas. From 75° coming off of the priceless Francis Bacon triptych painting itself, and its corresponding wall, to 96° off of the facing window overlooking Wilshire Blvd.
On the far west side, the Henri Matisse mosaic, the John Mason sculpture and the corresponding walls have been warmed to over 76°. It probably explains the decision to exhibit those pieces in that area - and the probability that nothing else other than hardy outdoor works of art will be there. But it doesn’t explain why the Bacon is hanging where it is.
In any case, an art conservator will tell you that art being expanded and contracted due to 20°+ temperature fluctuations is not a smart idea, to say the least, and will seriously damage the art over any period of time.
Even the floors are radiating heat at 74°.
As for the fit and finish of the building, one of the docents pointed out to us that there’s some sort of “gunky“ material coming out of the base of the window frame along the floor.
Is it because of the heat or the cost cutting, slapdash work? [End quote]
Richard Brown, meet Michael Govan, Michael Govan, meet Richard Brown.
William Pereira, meet Peter Zumthor. Peter Zumthor, meet William Pereira.
It's 1965 all over again. Oh, well.