Quotes of the Day: Queen Latifah and Aaron Betsky
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| Kelly Freas, Alternate Universe, 1957. Lucas Museum of Narrative Art |
"Paris has the Louvre. New York has the Met. And now L.A. has its artistic equal."
—Queen Latifah in The New York Times
"I believe I can ground my judgement not only in a critique of the combination of what I think is a demeaning populism behind which a lavish elitism and self-aggrandizement of a person who might make good movies, but seems to have sponsored a monument that displays no discernment in the field of art, hides, but I also full well recognize that the Lucas Museum will without any doubt in my mind be much more popular than the Geffen–which, in the three times I have been there, was nearly empty despite the splash its recent opening made."
—Aaron Betsky in Architect
Comments
> the splash its recent opening
> made."
Because of LACMA's pock-marked history for over 60 years - unimpressive layout, uninspiring exhibit areas and a generally non-must-see collection - and LA being one of the few major cities of the US to not have a free-standing public art museum until as late as the 1960s, 5905 Wilshire Blvd will always be playing a game of "oh noes!"
The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, which is now the 2nd largest art museum in America, isn't necessarily a place I'd treat as more than a slog. But it's better than the so-so visceral reaction that many (most?) visitors to LACMA through the decades must have long had.
Areas like the Ahmanson's notorious ground floor, with its dark tile floor and short ceiling height, were a series of disappointments. So the museum since 1965 has traditionally been visually or tactically a case of one and done.
In 2026, the Geffen now comes off as too much like a parking garage with a lot of blank gray concrete walls and empty floor space. And probably for budgetary but also creative reasons, LACMA's director and staff keep installing way too much generic, non-must-see, hipster-contemporary-deconstructionist art.
My conclusion after spending several hours there last week: Lucas has brought the history of the Western art museum to its inevitable conclusion. Centuries of efforts to democratize the experience have come to fruition, in a gigantic, magnificent, messy, maddening absurdity.
That, however, is not the conclusion of one of the gallery guards who was on her second day of employment. “I’ve never been to an art museum before,” she told me. “I love it.” I believe her.
…With a few exceptions, this is a relentlessly patriarchal, heteronormative and often misogynistic world dominated by fair-haired, prosperous white people.
No museum I’ve ever visited is so committed to the anti-intellectual proposition that art is about feeling and experiencing, not thinking. If you divorce art from history and context, devalue the artist’s power of invention and idiosyncratic insight, and privilege only draftsmanship, any effort to distinguish between good and bad art — art that elevates and art that degrades, art that provokes and art that merely affirms — is moot. I suspect Lucas would happily agree.
Representational art was beleaguered in the 20th century, by critics committed to abstraction, conceptualism and a morbid fear of the finer emotions. It’s good to see artists who resisted the straitjacket of ideology given the respect they deserve.
But they are famous, and at some point you realize that Lucas doesn’t just want a comprehensive museum of images that illustrate stories, he wants to own as many icons of representational art, especially ones that circulate in popular culture, as he could possibly acquire… Lucas’s deep pockets have allowed him to collect an astonishing pantheon of disparate but recognizable images, and that almost guarantees that this museum will be successful.
But if you believe that art is meant to do more than tickle the eyeballs and warm the loins, you will walk away more than skeptical of Lucas’s agenda. There are some 1,300 works on view and the treacle, the clichés, the repetition and the limited ambition of too many of the artists become overwhelming.
Some of it is conventional patriotic stuff, and much of it comes from the political left, including protest art. But given Lucas’s definition of narrative art, what would preclude Nazi imagery, the “children, kitchen, church” images that celebrated racial purity? The galleries devoted to Everyday Life and Civic Life are stuffed with American works that would be hard to distinguish from sugary genre scenes of Germany in the 1930s.
Which is why this museum will be extraordinarily popular and successful, and pose an intellectual and existential challenge to museums with more substantial ambition. [End quote]
That review is all over the creative and political map. So much so, I got whiplash.
> 65.
Ted G, I sure wish W Poundstone's site got as much back-and-fro as it deserves, such as the over 130 comments posted to Washington Post's website. So reader replies are more than just you, J Garcin or a few other anonymous posters like me.
Kennicott's review was summed up by that newspaper's AI program as most readers not being too impressed by the reporter's critique.
Sgt. Saunders, Washingtonpost.com: Kennicott’s curmudgeon mode on display. If it was up to him, that is all that would be displayed.
Man from Munich, Washingtonpost.com: Near Munich, in Bernried, is the Lothar Günther Buchheim Museum. He collected all kinds of things… While it was constructed there was a discussion: Is this an Art Museum or just a memorial for the patron. It is both, and imho thats Ok.
Paul in Minnesota, Washingtonpost.com: "We don’t need more stories; we need better ones. We need less entertainment and more disruption." Kind of a weird critique of a museum founded by a man who made a career inspired by myth, comic books and pulp adventures.
KennyD33, Washingtonpost.com: As for the criticism in this piece, little seems to relate to Lucas' mission or the museum itself, while most of it seems misplaced, as it stems from the author wishing it was a different museum altogether.
Scoutraveler, Washingtonpost.com: …I think we already have a world full of academic, elitist and intellectually exclusive art institutions, so this one is a refreshing swerve off that road, and the author is clearly bothered. So what.
Peter Burris, Washingtonpost.com: I loved this review. I still want to go and see this museum, as I think a place which affords access to the public all sorts of art counts as a net gain…. I've been to museums on six continents, and I know that reflects the level of privilege I enjoy, but I would say that someone like the guard with whom he spoke, a person who had not been to a museum, would be ill served by the absence of structure and historical gloss that good curatorship affords.
Real Mac1, Washingtonpost.com: To me, the concept and the building are grandiose in the extreme, for a purpose that seems mundane. A story that started out a good yarn but became boring in the weeds, and hardly colossal at any point.
ChopSalad, Washingtonpost.com: …Except that ... there IS NO Nazi imagery, or art celebrating "racial purity.” This is an excellent example, not of the decline of the museum - but the decline of art criticism
RoadKill, Washingtonpost.com: The intellectual snobbery in this so-called review is breathtaking… I consider myself a reasonably well-read, intelligent college graduate who has written some successful newspaper articles, columns, editorials, and a book or two, but I had to look up demiurge and détournement; thanks to Mr. Kennicott for expanding my (obviously limited) vocabulary. Should I ever return to Los Angeles, Mr. Lucas' museum will be at the top of my must-see list.
cmattward; Washingtonpost.com: Philip Kennicott’s review of the Lucas Museum is astute, balanced and well expressed. At a time when entertainment and self-interest so often masquerade as journalism—and celebrity worship and TikTok attention spans shape the broader culture—his sharp, informed criticism is a breath of fresh air.
Sam Damon, Washingtonpost.com: The building looks pretty cool. Every once in a while, arrogant, condescending, disdainful elitists drop the mask and show who they really are. Gone is the pretense that art can be fun and accessible.
MusicToMyEars, Washingtonpost.com: I'd like to be able to walk into a museum and look at it critically like that. Rather than simply as a person who's not very philosophical, who doesn't get very deep into the subjects. Probably doesn't know how. I remember taking some classes in college that had to do with music composition, etc., etc., but it certainly sounds to me like the Lucas Museum would be something I would love to see if I could.
Graycal, Washingtonpost.com: Life does imitate art, as I believe this reviewer is more pretentious than the museum.
W.E. Coyote, Washingtonpost.com: While I was amused by the tone of this review and tend to agree with much of Kennicott's contempt for modern/contemporary art I must defend Mr. Lucas. For starters he has constructed a building that should serve as the setting for every science fiction movie made from here on out. It is clearly not from earth.
From The Uecker Seats, Washingtonpost.com: I'm not sure I've ever read a review that dripped with so much self-importance, or so much anger that people might not want to listen to what the author has to say -- and he's not at all happy about it. It screams "Listen to me! Listen to me!"
SafetyCity, Washingtonpost.com: Traditional art museums are filling up with art that is a nothing without a long explanation about the process and meaning behind it. Mostly an essay with an irrelevant illustration. Nice to see art that is complete in itself and not just a rock on the floor with a long comment about why it is art.
SaG SaG2, Washingtonpost.com: My reading of the article. "This museum isn't anti-conservative/anti-western/pro-elitist enough. So I don't like it."
D8a_Diva2, Washingtonpost.com: This review was dripping intellectual condescension with every sentence. Art does not always have to be a graduate seminar in deconstructionist history and post modern ethics. Curators that approach installations in such a manner may find their dear museums nearly empty and in bankrupcy...
robert.kapler, Washingtonpost.com: Too bad the story has to run the critique through the DEI lens. Can't wait to visit this wonderful place.
I live on Mars thankfully, Washingtonpost.com: Warhol's early Pop Art was dismissed by some critics as a joke. Soup cans? Time has a way of changing perspectives and critic's minds. Suspect that will true here.
dale.hisiger, Washingtonpost.com: Negative article written so smugly. So I get it, you aren’t a fan, it doesn’t meet the standards of what you deem as a traditional art institution. Would you have been a critic of the Guggenheim’s swirling edifice back in 1959? I personally am looking forward to visiting.
Natemurray, Washingtonpost.com: The author is lacking the most important characteristic of an art critic: Openess to new ideas and novelty. Isn't that what are is supposed to be about: Opening us to a new way of looking at the world? He sure failed.
calmNcents, Washingtonpost.com: Oh, come now, Kennicott. Put your snoot back in its place and realize that this museum is hardly "an intellectual and existential challenge to museums with more substantial ambition." Do you seriously think the great museums of the world are endangered somehow by this? Lucas spent his own money and gave the people of LA a chance to see his personal collection. He never implied this was the Louvre.
Islandfox, Washingtonpost.com: As a museum professional for over 30 years, the headline is silly---there are all kinds of museums of the over 600 museums in this country. Lucas had the vision and the funds to make this happen, and it is just as legitimate as any traditional art museum. Bravo for him doing this!
The museum makes a good case for the [Narrative] category. If you do not get the narrative art rubric on the way in, you will by the way out, thanks to many—too many—works by the likes of rugged realist painter N.C. Wyeth and the macho sci-fi illustrator Frank Frazetta.
Along the way there are some nice surprises, like a section on murals featuring works by the street artists Banksy and JR. The highlight there is a suite of sketches that the artist Judy Baca created... There is also a first-rate selection of children’s book illustrations with vitrines that are not to be missed…
The swooping figure-eight shaped building, designed by Ma Yansong of Mad Architects with a billion-dollar price tag, has a keen sense of adventure too. The parabolic walls and curved ribbons of windows hint at jet planes and spaceships and a set of three central elevators look like pneumatic tubes.
… Unlike the Zumthor building, where the plaza looks barren by comparison, the Lucas Museum appears to have sent ripple effects into the earth around it—...a hilly parkland featuring lush meandering and flowering paths. This marriage of architecture and landscape makes Lucas’s earlier thwarted plans to build his museum in San Francisco and Chicago seem like distant history.
Inside, the main fifth-floor exhibition space is vast, almost as big as a suburban Target retail store, but easy to navigate.… One of my early concerns was that much of this artwork, made by and for white men, would traffic in nostalgia for an idealised American society before the civil rights movement. Would it all feel vaguely white supremacist?
A section on Western art definitely falls into this trap, made worse by Lucas’s decision across the board to forego wall labels that would put work in context or explore issues it raises. And the museum’s “motherhood” display is lame, rehashing all of the rosy clichés about maternal affection without including any great, truth-telling artist-mothers.
Still, there are some formidable moments, especially when Black artists enter the picture. Robert Colescott’s satiric 1975 painting of George Washington Carver (the scientist, not the president) crossing the Delaware River sets the stage for a lively section on “history”; images of segregated schoolchildren by Gordon Parks do the same for photography.
The Rockwell section is surprisingly strong in this way—remarkably of the moment. The museum has paired his famous 1958 painting of a runaway boy at a soda counter, chatting with a friendly looking policeman, with Richard Williams’s similar scene from 2014 where the boy is Black and the cop is outfitted in riot gear.
The Rockwell gallery also features, up front, a bronze replica of his witty 1960 painting Triple Self-Portrait… Commissioned last year by the museum, this replica fits the theme of the Rockwell painting, a savvy lesson in how images multiply. At the same time the bronze is museum-sanctioned shlock, clearly made without the participation or consent of the long-deceased artist.
Your particular take on the ethics and value of this kind of image replication matters even more when it comes to a cursory ground-floor survey of narrative art through the ages. Tucked behind two beautiful film theatres, this survey is a bizarre experiment in replicating artworks that the Lucas Museum does not—and could never hope to—own… The maybe-admirable idea is to let visitors see the Aztec sun stone without going to Mexico City or Michelangelo’s David without going to Florence. But the sheer profusion of simulacra is deeply strange and unsettling, like you are trapped inside the metaverse.
…While museums tend to safeguard and even fetishise original objects, Lucas, like his favourite illustrators, evidently sees every image as ripe for reproduction. It all makes for a profoundly weird museum of art. It is more a museum of images designed to travel to galaxies—or at least countries—far, far away.
But and as with the Geffen, I've yet to see any visitor question why certain walls in the Lucas look noticeably barren. Although those walls are mainly for hallways or passageways, they still look like something is missing.
But that's really inexcusable for the Geffen. Too much of LACMA's collection already remains locked away in storage, and some of its major display areas give the vague impression of incompleteness.
In one instance, above a fireplace mantel in the museum's collection, and originally from a property in Chicago, where normally a painting or mirror, etc, would hang, there's nothing. Just more of the Geffen's many gray concrete surfaces. So the building makes LACMA look like it has more space than it knows what do do with. There are other areas where objects look arranged in a seemingly haphazard or non-professional manner.
... My quote of the day is from Mellody Hobson, Lucas's wife:
"We didn't follow any rules. We didn't work at a museum. We don't have Ph.D's. We just did... we... we... we took out a piece of white paper --- really George, and said this is what we wanted it to be. And, so some rules are broken. And, some people don't like it. But we do."
... Ah Mellody, should have conferred with some PhD's. ... Best hope now for your museum is a USC-takeover. UCLA saved the Hammer. Perhaps, USC can save the Lucas.
--- J. Garcin