Welcome to all of our new subscribers! If you’re enjoying Punch List so far, I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription—or try out our new Tip Jar feature.
An aerial view of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, looking east over Exposition Park and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The pedestrian connection under the museum, visible in this image as it extends from 39th Street into the park, has now been fenced off. The building is designed by MAD Architects, with landscape by Studio MLA. (Photo by Weston Hancock/SOPA Images/ Sipa USA, licensed via AP Images)
I’ve been workshopping a new tagline for L.A.’s buzziest cultural attraction.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art: Where Joy Meets Pique.
Catchy, isn’t it?
The crowds packing the sleek, cruise-ship–sized museum, which was designed by the Chinese architect Ma Yansong and his firm MAD and opened in late September, are drawn primarily by the filmmaker’s collection of Star Wars props and memorabilia, at least if the costumes you see people wearing inside the galleries are any indication. This lends many parts of the building an upbeat, even celebratory air. Visitors make a beeline for the Cinema section on the fourth floor, where they pose for selfies or group photos in front of C-3PO, Darth Vader, or the Naboo N-1 Starfighter. The vibes in these rooms, though they are sometimes packed to the gills, are top-notch.
At the same time, the museum has been propelled since its inception by Lucas’s sense—his annoyance, really—that his art collection has never been taken seriously by curators or critics. (As the Lucas website notes, he began acquiring art in college by buying “an illustration of Alley Oop, the time-traveling caveman,” and over time the collection grew to include Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, and Frida Kahlo, as well as illustrators and graphic artists.) The galleries that show these works, as a result, have a desultory feeling, and not just because they are comparatively empty.
