Lucas Museum Opens in Los Angeles

Writing for RogerEbert.com, Jana Monji reports on her visits to the newly opened Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park, Los Angeles. The museum was co-founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson and was first proposed for Chicago and then San Francisco. Ma Yansong of MAD Architects was the design architect and Studio-MLA the landscape architect. The invitation to the opening event warned that lightsabers had to be checked and that masks or face paint were not permitted. Monji describes a mural gallery with Judith F. Baca's work and pieces by Banksy, and an exhibit built around a 3D model of the museum's design. "Star Wars in Motion" shows vehicle designs, props, costumes and illustrations from the first six films. The sculpture garden holds works by Lawrence Noble, Antonin Mercie and Fernando Botero, and she says the most photographed piece is the 2025 bronze "Princess Leia Frees Herself from Jabba the Hutt" by Mark Newman and Giovanni Nakpil. Her main criticism is a lack of perspective and context in the displays. The museum is within walking distance of the University of Southern California, where Lucas studied and to whose film school he gave $175 million in 2006. Photo: RON RAFFETY, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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