The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art - Los Angeles (2025)

Une année s'est déjà écoulée depuis la première pelletée et les travaux de construction suivent leur cours.












George Lucas a rencontré lundi dernier les conservateurs du musée pour discuter des expositions inaugurales du Lucas Museum of Narrative Art dont l'ouverture est toujours prévue en 2021.

Le futur musée de George Lucas a fait aujourd'hui l'objet d'un panel à la convention San Diego Comic-Con 2019 :

Citation :

At SDCC, Go Behind the Scenes of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Get a first look at Star Wars creator George Lucas’s unique collection focused on art that tells stories, soon to be on display at the Los Angeles-based museum.

Just as George Lucas’s original Star Wars film was first introduced through a panel at San Diego Comic-Con back in 1976, this year fans can get their first glimpse at the future of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art during the convention’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Currently under construction in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park, the museum collection will focus on art that tells stories — including everything from ancient Greek pottery to illustrations created for magazines, comic art, and the art of filmmaking (like storyboards, costumes, props, and visual effects from Star Wars and beyond). “The Comic-Con audience has shown incredible dedication not only to George Lucas and his films, but to narrative art more broadly,” the Lucas Museum team recently told StarWars.com. “We will have much to offer for everyone at the Lucas Museum and we are excited that the Comic-Con audience will be among the first to hear about our museum and collection.”



During the event next week, attendees can join members of the Lucas Museum’s founding curatorial team — Erin M. Curtis, Anastasia James, and Ryan Linkof — for Lucas Museum of Narrative Art: Behind the Scenes.

The panel will offer an exciting early glimpse at the collection, carefully assembled to inspire current and future generations through the art of visual storytelling. “We will look at a wide array of works from ancient Roman mosaics to Norman Rockwell to Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, and discuss how these diverse works and artists will come together in our galleries to offer fresh insight into narrative art and its significance throughout history,” the team says.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art: Behind the Scenes panel will take place Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 10 a.m. in Room 5AB during San Diego Comic-Con.

https://www.starwars.com/news/sdcc-lucas-museum-of-narrative-art-panel

Et un article de Todd Martens, qui assisté au panel, pour The Los Angeles Times : https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-07-18/lucas-museum-narrative-art-comic-con

Citation :

SDCC 2019: 5 Things We Learned from the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Panel

The museum's expansive collection will offer an up-close look at Star Wars props and much, much more.

Just as fans received their first glimpse of the Star Wars saga at San Diego Comic-Con in 1976, a packed audience in room 5AB at the San Diego Convention Center were introduced to another first look on Thursday. The George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art showed off a few of the unique pieces and works of art in George Lucas’ most impressive collection, and took attendees behind the scenes of its stunning collection.

Currently under construction in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park, the museum’s primary focus will be on narrative art — artwork that tells stories. “At the Lucas Museum, what matters is the kind of story that an artwork can tell, and the effect that story has on people. We aim to help audiences understand that everyone has their own story to tell and that art is an important tool that everyone can use to tell their diverse stories,” museum curator Erin M. Curtis explained at the beginning of the panel.

The panel offered just a small taste of offerings from the vast archives at the Lucas Museum’s disposal. In total, the collection draws from six key groups: American art, children’s book illustration, cinema, comic art, photography, and world art before 1950. From early Egyptian hieroglyphics carved in stone to original Star Wars matte paintings, the Lucas Museum celebrates narrative art in its many, varied forms. For Lucasfilm fans, there’s plenty of pieces from the company’s production archive that visitors can look forward to seeing in person. Here are five Lucasfilm-centric things we learned.

1. Get an up close, detailed look at the Death Star. For the first time, Star Wars fans will be able to see the screen-used model from 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in person. “This model of the Death Star is really one of the most spectacular items in the archive and it really has to be seen in person. The model is a 3D object, approximately 6-feet-tall, created out of thin layers of brass that have been eroded with acid. It’s incredibly intricate and has never been shown before publicly,” curator Ryan Linkof told the crowd.

2. Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art will be on display. The museum will be home to the legendary Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art paintings from the classic trilogy. Curator Ryan Linkof showed off two well known pieces recognizable to fans: early 1975 production art depicting Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader, and a 1980 illustration depicting Luke and Yoda on Dagobah from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

3. See the beginnings of the saga. Original storyboards from Star Wars: A New Hope to Return of the Jedi will be on display as part of the museum’s cinema collection. At the panel, curators showed an early sketch drawn by artist Alex Tavoularis with the words “The Star Wars” visualized in the style of the new iconic opening crawl of the saga, created before the title was even fully determined.

4. Indiana Jones and Willow will be part of the museum’s collection. While much of the museum’s cinema collection draws from Star Wars, it will also have many items from the Indiana Jones franchise and Willow, as well. The panel showed off a photo of The Ark of the Covenant prop kept in the Lucasfilm production archive, revealing there are actually two versions of the iconic movie artifact, one more illustrious than the other, because they were used for different cinematic effect. Additionally, early Indiana Jones concept art by famed comic artist Jim Steranko was shown as another highlight that fans can look forward to seeing in person.

5. Lightsabers galore. Of course, there will be no shortage of lightsabers on display at the Lucas Museum. Curator Ryan Linkof told the panel audience, “a vast assortment of lightsabers from Episodes I-VI” will be part of the collection. The panelists showed off an image of Luke’s original lightsaber prop from A New Hope, in addition to an image highlighting nearly 40 different lightsabers kept in the museum’s archives. From Mace Windu to Darth Vader, there will be plenty of iconic Jedi weapons on view from throughout the saga’s history for fans.

https://www.starwars.com/news/sdcc-2019-5-things-we-learned-from-the-lucas-museum-of-narrative-art-panel?cmp=smc%7C2489426818&fbclid=IwAR0LKHeHIETKZxGswkVYQp_Tqlja6vYwd0Dw7mwupVQxwutFGTrSJGW3z54

Avec le retard causé par la pandémie de Covid-19, l'inauguration du Lucas Museum of Narrative Art est maintenant envisagée pour 2023.

Citation :

George Lucas’ new L.A. museum moves full speed ahead

You may have seen our recent swarm of stories on all things Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The museum opens Sept. 30 and let’s just say the A, C, D and E keys have faded, entirely, on my computer keyboard after having typed out “Academy Museum” so frequently. But what about that other filmmaker museum rising in L.A.?

Hi, I’m arts writer Deborah Vankin, filling in for Carolina Miranda (whose computer keyboard, no doubt, has a few faded letters by now as well). I’ll start this week’s Essential Arts with an update on George Lucas’ spaceship of a museum rising in Exposition Park next door to the Coliseum.

Another opening on the horizon

The $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is on track to premiere in 2023. Los Angeles has not had a major film museum until now, with the Academy Museum opening. But how much visitor appetite is there? And is there room for two large cinematic arts museums in one city?

Absolutely, said Lucas Museum Director Sandra Jackson-Dumont, while also reminding everyone of an important distinction.

“We’re super excited about the opening of the Academy Museum — it’s so necessary as a new addition to the Los Angeles community and it will expand the cultural landscape,” Jackson-Dumont said. “But I’m happy to say that the only film museum in the city is the Academy Museum because the Lucas Museum is a museum dedicated to narrative art; it’s not about film only.”

Narrative art, she added, “cuts across space and time and really is about visual storytelling through a range of material. It’s photography, it’s painting, it’s sculpture, it’s ephemera from newspapers and magazines, it’s all of those things.”

COVID-19 health and safety protocols may have slowed construction and pushed the Lucas Museum’s targeted 2022 debut, but the futuristic-looking Ma Yansong-designed building is progressing, Jackson-Dumont said.

The museum secured the final beam in its steel structure and “topped out” in March. Construction of two movie theaters, second-floor classrooms and the fourth-floor galleries — about 80,000 square feet of exhibition space — is underway. The galleries will feature works from Lucas’ personal collection of more than 100,000 pieces of fine and popular art as well as “Star Wars” ephemera.

The museum recently hired a deputy director of public programs and social impact, Regan Pro, who comes from the Seattle Art Museum, where she held a similar position. Key positions in the library, operations, programming and curatorial departments will be announced in the first quarter of next year.

The Lucas Museum also is beefing up its collection. Earlier this month it acquired Alice Neel’s painting “Fish Market” (1947), which was part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent retrospective, “Alice Neel: People Come First.” In May the Lucas Museum acquired Robert Colescott’s 1975 painting “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page From an American History Textbook,” which Jackson-Dumont calls a vehicle “to explore and unpack racially, socially and historically charged and significant figures.”

It’s also added contemporary works by Southern California artists to its permanent collection, including Cara Romero’s “The Last Indian Market” (2015) and Criselda Vasquez’s “The New American Gothic” (2017).

But Jackson-Dumont may be most excited about a work the museum acquired in late 2020: Frida Kahlo’s “Autorretrato Dedicado al Dr. Eloesser” (Self Portrait Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser) (1940), which was included in the de Young Museum’s recent exhibition “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving.”

“It’s one of her most important works,” Jackson-Dumont said. “It was painted during a particularly tumultuous time in her life, and it incorporates images that tell about aspects of her experiences. There’s a thorn necklace around the neck, the earrings were a gift from Picasso, the banner inscribed with a dedication to the physician that helped her during her time in the Bay Area. We’re looking forward to inviting people to discuss this work, see this work. I think this is the “Mona Lisa” of Mexico, it’s beautiful.”

The museum has also added several archives to its collection. This spring it acquired a nearly 3,000-object collection of artworks and other materials by Mexican political lithographer José Guadalupe Posada. It also acquired Judith F. Baca’s archive documenting the making her epic, half-mile-long mural, “The Great Wall of Los Angeles.” She’s the first female muralist represented in the museum’s collection.

And if you’re intrigued by the colorful art on the museum’s construction fence along Bill Robertson Lane, that’s a project between the Lucas Museum and arts nonprofit L.A. Commons. The art is by 21 local students who worked with muralist Noni Olabisi and L.A. artist Luis Mateo to create narrative art for the fence. The works touch on themes of neighborhood and community, family and friendship.

“It’s exciting,” Jackson-Dumont said of all the momentum. “It’s a really amazing moment. We’ve been busy on every level.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/newsletter/2021-09-18/essential-arts-lucas-museum-rises-essential-arts

L'inauguration du Lucas Museum of Narrative Art est maintenant repoussée à 2025. Le nouveau retard de deux ans est dû à des complications liées à la pandémie, en particulier à des problèmes de chaîne d'approvisionnement qui ont rendu difficile l'approvisionnement de certains matériaux de construction.

Citation :

Lucas Museum delays opening to 2025, “all areas of construction” moving forward

The $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is rising in Exposition Park, has pushed back its opening date from 2023 to 2025. The two-year delay, the museum says, is due to pandemic complications, specifically supply chain issues that have made the procuring of certain construction materials difficult.

“It’s not one thing, it’s an accumulation of things,” Lucas Museum Director Sandra Jackson-Dumont says in an interview. “It’s definitely supply chains, delays in getting materials, manufacturer issues, there are all these pieces that have together created this kind of impact on the schedule.”

The museum broke ground in March 2018 and “topped out” — the term for setting the final beam within its steel structure in place — in March 2021. In April 2021, the museum pushed its targeted 2022 debut by a year because of pandemic-related delays. COVID-19 health and safety protocols had slowed construction, it said at the time. Now, Jackson-Dumont says, two more years are needed not only for construction, but to also make sure the finished building is suitable to house art.

“We wanted to give ourselves time, once the building is complete, to make sure the building goes through the proper readiness and remediation processes, so we can ensure the artwork is safe coming into the building,” Jackson-Dumont says, referring to temperature controls and other environmental conditions. “And that process — the mitigation — really takes a period of time.”

The timeline delay, Jackson-Dumont says, will not affect the projected cost of the building. “The budget — that’s where we are and we had a contingency in place,” she says.

Filmmaker George Lucas and wife Mellody Hobson are “the primary funding source” for the museum. Should the cost go up, Jackson-Dumont says, “they are committed to supporting this project.”

“But we are not talking about the cost going up, that’s not a conversation we’re having,” she adds. “They are committed to realizing this incredible asset.”

Crédit photographique : Roberto Gomez, USC School of Cinematic Arts / JAKS Productions.

The five-story, 300,000-square-foot, futuristic-looking museum, which is rising next door to the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, was designed by MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong. It has an arched belly, creating a shaded, open-air plaza underneath that visitors can pass through into Exposition Park. The building is primarily composed of steel, glass and concrete along with wood, geofoam, fiberglass-reinforced polymer and plaster.

Geofoam has been a problem — the lightweight filling material, often used to help create topography, is one material that’s been affected by supply chain issues, the museum says. There have also been issues with shipping parts from Europe, such as light fixtures, glass and custom elevator components. COVID safety protocols, ensuring on-site workers are safe, continue to slow construction as well.

Still, Jackson-Dumont says, “progress in all areas of construction” is moving forward. The museum is responding nimbly and creatively, she says, shifting focus in order to keep construction going. That’s meant accelerating construction in certain areas they might not have gotten to yet, while other areas slowed.

“We’re going where we can work,” Jackson-Dumont says.

One construction milestone, of late, is the installation of more than 1,500 curved, fiberglass-reinforced polymer panels that make up the building’s surface. They’re currently being affixed to the southern side of the building. Each creamy white panel is hand-finished and unique; together, they give the building an organic, biomorphic feel, the museum says.

“It feels so significant,” Jackson-Dumont says of the panel installation. “It almost feels like a topping out in some ways, because you’re starting to see the skin of this building.”

The fourth-floor galleries — about 80,000 square feet of exhibition space to showcase fine and popular art from Lucas’ personal collection as well as “Star Wars” ephemera — are well underway, with the area’s ceiling grid and permanent walls complete. Mechanical, electrical, plumbing and life safety systems are roughed-in, meaning mostly installed. Parts of the glass elevators are being installed, as are window installations.

The museum’s two theaters and classroom spaces are also in motion , as are the restaurant and cafe, gift shop and event spaces.

Crédit photographique : Hunter Kerhart / Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Development of the museum’s 11-acre campus, which replaces a parking lot, includes a park and gardens designed by Studio-MLA founder Mia Lehrer. Planting has begun of more than 200 trees, including cathedral and cork oaks, jacarandas and pink trumpet trees. Eventually there will be more than 30 species, and additional landscaping will feature drought-tolerant and California native plants. The park’s amphitheater benches are installed and work is underway on a pedestrian bridge and hanging gardens.

One thing Jackson-Dumont is geeking out on: the two underground garages. They’ll include 2,300 parking spots, 600 more than were formerly available in the aboveground asphalt lot. She’s also especially excited about the “porous design” of the building and surrounding campus — how it flows, seamlessly, into Exposition Park. “It feels like a continuous campus connecting us to these already existing great resources,” Jackson-Dumont says.

The Lucas Museum has also been growing its collection of more than 100,000 artworks across painting, sculpture, photography, movies, murals, comic art, book and magazine illustrations and filmmaking objects and ephemera. It has particularly deep holdings of work by Norman Rockwell, Ernie Barnes, Jacob Lawrence, Kadir Nelson and N.C. Wyeth, among other artists.

This year the museum acquired a piece from Oxnard-based Jaime Hernandez from the alternative comic “Love and Rockets,” a series he created with brothers Gilbert and Mario. The piece originally appeared as a Village Voice cover in 2010. The museum also acquired a series of illustrations from Tongva and Scottish L.A-based artist Weshoyot Alvitre. They’re from her 2019 children’s book, created with Traci Sorell, “At the Mountain’s Base,” about a Native American World War II pilot.

Crédit photographique : Weshoyot Alvitre / Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Other 2022 acquisitions: a print series by Chitra Ganesh, “Architects of the Future — Away From the Watcher” (2014); a photograph by the late Chicana artist Laura Aguilar, “Day of the Dead” (1989-90); a watercolor and collage work by Bryan Collier, created for the cover of the 2016 children’s book “City Shapes,” by Diana Murray; and an illustration by Grace Lin, “We Eat a Little Bit of Everything” (2001), from her children’s book “Dim Sum for Everyone!”

“It’s wonderful to have acquired a significant amount of Latinx work in the past year,” Jackson-Dumont says. “We also are thrilled about many of the L.A.-based artists that we’ve acquired. And we’re particularly excited about having artists from the Tongva people in our collection.”

“The way I think about acquisitions,” she says, “I’m thinking about the whole. So I’m very excited about other works we’ve collected since 2020, as well, that I think are pretty incredible.”

Chief among them: a 1975 painting, acquired last May, by Robert Colescott, “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page From an American History Textbook.” Jackson-Dumont has called it a vehicle “to explore and unpack racially, socially and historically charged and significant figures.”

Crédit photographique : Kadir Nelson / Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Two significant 2020 acquisitions are both responses to the work of Norman Rockwell: the series of photographs, “Four Freedoms Set II” 2018, by For Freedoms, an artist collective founded by Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur, in collaboration with Eric Gottesman and Wyatt Gallery as well as Kadir Nelson’s painting “Art Connoisseurs” (2019), which appeared on the cover of the New Yorker in 2019. Last year the museum also added Kerry James Marshall’s “RHYTHM MASTR Daily Strip (Runners)” (2018) to its collection, a work that addresses Black representation — or lack thereof — in mainstream comics.

Important works by Frida Kahlo and Alice Neel were acquired last fall along with contemporary works by Southern California artists including Cara Romero and Criselda Vasquez. The museum also acquired key archives of work by José Guadalupe Posada and Judith F. Baca.

Crédit photographique : Ernie Barnes Family Trust / Jeff McLane, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Even as the museum rises, several works in its collection are on view elsewhere, including the Colescott work, now at the New Museum in New York — it will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art later this fall. And two works by Diego Rivera are currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of a survey of the artist’s work.

All of which could be considered an essential, if urgent, response to the tumultuous times we live in, Jackson-Dumont says.

Narrative art, she says, “shapes how we see each other, how we talk about each other, interact with each other, how we love, hate, control, do whatever with each other. It’s an amazingly powerful, socially shaping art form. These stories actually contribute to the world, and we need places where we unpack them. It actually can create a more humane society.”

Regarding the timeline delays, she adds: “I find it fascinating that we’re doing this amidst COVID, amidst all that’s happening. And it’s not just a construction site. We’re building an institution, a 200-plus-year proposition. And we’re doing it amidst the most uncertain moments in our time.”

The Los Angeles Times - 20 septembre 2022.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-09-20/lucas-museum-delays-opening-to-2025

Cette semaine, et pour une semaine, c’est ce topic consacré au Lucas Museum of Narrative Art qui a été choisi dans le cadre de notre volonté de partager en une de Chronique Disney, la richesse et variété des débats sur DCP (lien en cliquant sur l'image).
Il sera aussi relayé sur la page Facebook et le fil Twitter de Chronique Disney.

Une galerie de photos de Allen J. Schaben pour The Los Angeles Times nous présente l'avancement des travaux de l'édifice qui abritera le Lucas Museum of Narrative Art en 2025 :  

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-26/in-a-galaxy-not-so-far-away-spaceship-design-lucas-museum-taking-off

Citation :

George Lucas' Billion Dollar Museum Is About Way More Than 'Star Wars'

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens next Year in Exposition Park

We’re still maybe a year out from the grand opening of the new museum created by film director George Lucas and his wife, executive Melody Hobson. But anyone visiting the Coliseum, Natural History Museum, USC, or riding the Expo Line has seen the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art rising above Exposition Park. The absolutely massive structure by Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong encloses some 300,000 square feet over a building ranging from three and five floors set atop an underground parking garage (with 600 more spaces than the surface lot the building replaced) all nestled in a green garden.

We’re still maybe a year out from the grand opening of the new museum created by film director George Lucas and his wife, executive Melody Hobson. But anyone visiting the Coliseum, Natural History Museum, USC, or riding the Expo Line has seen the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art rising above Exposition Park. The absolutely massive structure by Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong encloses some 300,000 square feet over a building ranging from three and five floors set atop an underground parking garage (with 600 more spaces than the surface lot the building replaced) all nestled in a green garden.

Landscape architect Mia Lehrer saw a “hero’s journey” in her hilly design approach, while Yansong compared his structure to a cloud. Visitors from above might envision some sort of futuristic bowling pin resting in 11 acres of green, but the human view of the new cultural institution is going to be an awe-inspiring, larger than life piece of organic architecture. The museum thinks of it as a landmark meant to last for centuries. “This is not a project. This is not an initiative,” museum director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont told visitors on a recent walk-through. “This is a 200-year-plus proposition.”

Jackson-Dumont, a California native, was most recently the Chair of Education and Public Programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She spent 16 years at the Seattle Art Museum and was on the faculty of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. The museum describes itself as the first to focus exclusively on storytelling through images and will include paintings, sculptures, murals, photography, comic art, and illustrations. Lucas’ eclectic personal collection contains everything from Norman Rockwell paintings to Alberto Vargas pin-ups to comics by R. Crumb and is reportedly valued at over $600 million. The budget for the museum itself has been reported at $1 billion.

“This is a visual museum,” Jackson-Dumont says. “We have a great film museum, the Academy Museum here in Los Angeles. This is a museum looking at the impact of mass-produced images that have changed how we see each other for better or worse.” Jackson-Dumont is a charismatic dynamo in love with her new gig and her new city, and loves exploring the South Los Angeles neighborhoods around the park. She also looks forward to engaging with the vibrant cultural communities nearby with concerts and events at the museum but also using the facility as a training ground for architects, art historians, and even horticulturalists.

A version of the project has been in the works since at least 2013 and relocated twice before settling near downtown Los Angeles. “Chicago didn’t work out. San Francisco didn’t work out. I don’t want to be revisionist about it,” Jackson-Dumont says. “L.A. ended up being the right place for it. As much as the family chose L.A., L.A. chose it. The icing on the cake is that we’re across the street from USC where George is an alumni.”

Wandering the empty galleries, it was easy to imagine the mounds of shrink-wrapped construction material, studs, and electrical conduit stretching into the vast distance as art installations. The grand entry has soaring ceilings reminiscent of the swoopy concrete shells of Felix Candela. Other spaces recall Oscar Niemeyer’s monumental architecture of Brasilia. In addition to the many galleries, the sprawling compound includes high tech theaters, soaring special event spaces, restaurants with canted wraparound windows, and a library that will include not only books on narrative art, but the Lucasfilm production archive where future Star Wars scholars can examine the original artifacts that inspired a cinematic universe that helped create our city’s newest cultural institution.

Los Angeles Magazine