The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opened in Los Angeles yesterday, displaying 1,200 works across 30 galleries, including politically charged pieces such as Judith F. Baca's 'Depression: Mexican Deportation.' This new institution, built over nearly a decade, highlights the enduring power of national stories and the critical importance of defining who belongs within a cultural narrative. George Lucas, the creative mind behind major franchises, has assembled an immense collection of roughly 40,000 works over 60 years, never selling a single item.
The museum, with over 100,000 square feet of gallery space, sits in Exposition Park on what used to be a concrete parking lot. It stands in a 4.5-hectare park planted with 300 trees, including pines and jacarandas. The building itself, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, took nearly 10 years to construct and features four legs, two wings, and a vast skylight.
The Narrative of a Nation
The first hall explains the origins of narrative, focusing on heroes, myths, and the sacred. It includes original pieces like a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, alongside reproductions of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel and Velázquez’s Las Meninas. Tracey Bates, the museum’s British-born CEO, noted that while the Vatican offers an incredible experience, people don't always see the story up close. She stated, "You see the glory of the Sistine Chapel, but you don’t see the story of the Sistine Chapel." This emphasis on understanding the underlying narrative, rather than just the surface, speaks to the deeper cultural questions facing Europe.
The museum's founders, Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, have been shaping the museum idea for 20 years. They've created a space where works by Frida Kahlo sit alongside Beatrix Potter’s illustrations and the ships from the Star Wars saga. The collection also features works by Andy Warhol, photos by Robert Capa, and the original lion costume from The Wizard of Oz. This eclectic mix, curated to tell stories, underscores the deliberate effort to preserve and present a cultural heritage.
Borders and Belonging
The fifth and top floor is dedicated to muralism, which Lucas describes in the catalog as "among the oldest forms of narrative art." He states that "in a world saturated with fleeting digital images, murals offer a different tempo, require physical presence, anchor stories to specific places." This concept of anchoring stories to specific places directly confronts the challenges of demographic transformation and the erosion of national identity. The floor includes a large reproduction of Diego Rivera’s work, with Bates explaining, "it wouldn’t be right for us to take the Diego Rivera from Mexico. It remains where it remains, but that story doesn’t get told." This respect for a work's origin and context highlights a principle of cultural continuity.
Among the exhibits are half a dozen original Banksy pieces and politically charged works such as 'Crash' and 'Red Fear and McCarthyism' by Mexican-American Judith F. Baca, the mind behind The Great Wall of Los Angeles. Baca's 'Depression: Mexican Deportation' directly addresses the sensitive issue of national borders and the movement of peoples, a theme that resonates deeply with European concerns over uncontrolled migration. The museum's decision to feature such works demonstrates an acknowledgement of the profound impact of border policies on national narratives.
A Continent's Fading Story
The Lucas Museum, built for "100 years plus," includes two theaters with seating for 600, cafés, restaurants, a library, and study areas. It offers a free access digital guide, allowing visitors to point their phone at an image for context, rather than relying on wall labels. Bates said, "We want the image and the story in that image to be what you see and what you engage with." This approach prioritizes direct engagement with cultural narratives, a stark contrast to the fragmented and often contested cultural landscape emerging in many European cities. While Los Angeles opens a new institution dedicated to preserving and telling its stories, Europe grapples with the consequences of policies that have diluted its own historical narratives and cultural continuity, leaving its working and middle classes to bear the brunt of demographic shifts.