What the Geffen Leaves Out
Not at the Geffen: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Soap Bubbles , after 1739. LACMA, gift of Ahmanson Foundation LACMA's Geffen Galleries opened in late April with expanses of bare concrete wall and empty floor space. If you've not seen it since then, a lot has changed. As of mid June, there are hundreds more artworks on view, along with numerous empty or half-empty display cases awaiting installation. That makes it hard to address one of the key questions about Michael Govan's thematic installation philosophy. Will it manage to keep nearly all the most interesting, significant, and popular pieces on view? (I speak of light-tolerant sculptures, paintings, and ceramics that aren't on loan or installed elsewhere on the LACMA campus.) The concern is that prize works may remain in storage because they don't happen to fit the current set of themes. William Ahmanson, president of the Ahmanson Foundation, preferred a more traditional display. "Our greatest concern,...
