Does LACMA Art Play in Vegas?
Kéré Architecture, rendering of Las Vegas Museum of Art (left)
The Las Vegas Review-Journal has an update on the Las Vegas Museum of Art and its collection-sharing arrangement with LACMA. Roger Thomas, founding board member and decorator for the Wynns' casinos, told the Review-Journal: "We have access to 150,000 objects in the LACMA collection for our own curation, or to take shows that LACMA has curated. We will have one floor that will always show, in the main gallery, selections from the [LACMA] permanent collection."
Thomas struck this note of uncertainty about the LACMA largesse: "Does what resonates in Los Angeles resonate in Las Vegas? My answer is probably, but the rest of the answer is, 'I don't know.'"
The Las Vegas museum is currently projected to open in fall 2029.
Comments
Is nobody with resources going to file suit to protect our collection from seeding the private museum of a dead Museum Associates board member with artwork that belong to the people of our County?
> taxpayers of Los Angeles
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Meanwhile, the overseers of LACMA's artworks seem to treat them as minor objects in order to accommodate an interior way too reminiscent of Public Storage hallways (owned by a company with the orange motif) or a parking garage with lots of blank gray concrete walls.
Not sure when judgment is so careless or mediocre it encourages unethical behavior. Or when behavior is so unethical it encourages bad or flaky taste.
And when LACMA's staffers are drinking high-priced beverages at the Erehwon on the Geffen's ground floor, I hope they don't think that means they're necessarily more professional and sophisticated---or ethical.
> always show....selections
> from the [LACMA] permanent
> collection."
Following 2020, that's more than ever existed in the Resnick Pavilion.
Nothing is ever free.
The LACMA collection does NOT belong to the people of LA County.
Good thing too. Collectors do NOT like giving objects of legacy value directly to governments.
But they will give the object to Museum Associates (the entity that controls LACMA's collection) because it provides some protection from mob rule.
If the collector does not want his/her object to "seed" another museum, he or she can place conditions on the gift. Better yet he can give it to another museum which is not embroiled with people like you. But you or a "nobody with resources" does NOT have standing in a court of law to place conditions on the display of an object that you never owned in the first place.
--- J. Garcin
> object to Museum
> Associates
Which is a shame because they're all a bunch of rubes. And they're overseen by the biggest rube of them all, Michael Govan.
Good thing the hillbillies of the Ahmanson Foundation got the hell away from all the other hicks.
Sooie, sooie,
Sunset standing over Wilshire Blvd in the new LACMA building. I was so used to the old buildings, this one is very different and will take some time to get used to. I’m not sold on the metallic blinds....
Daniel Schweiger, Facebook:
Not a fan of this crematorium-styled hodgepodge
Susan Lowry, Facebook:
I am madly in love with the new building and the exhibit style.
Tom Southall, Facebook:
Susan Lowry Really? You like the external architecture??
Susan Lowry, Facebook:
Tom Southall not my fave, but I get the aesthetic. And the galleries are super interesting. I am not an architect or an artist. We took a private tour with one of the curators of Chinese and Korean art a few weeks ago, and it was good to see him so excited about it as well. And surprising. He’s an old school kinda guy. And this new wing is definitely new-fangled.
Tom Southall, Facebook:
The contents and courteous staff will save this ugly monstrosity from being a mere billion dollar disaster. [End quote]
LACMA's history forces me to be easygoing towards the museum. So even though Govan, his staffers and others affiliated with LACMA have botched some crucial things, my main complaint right now is the indifferent or non-professional way they've treated the collections. And with Las Vegas long seen as a cultural wasteland (it's for gambling, folks, not the traditional arts), LACMA being symbolically (and soon technically) tied to it is sort of par for the course.