A New Turn by LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has faced many challenges since its relocation to Wilshire Boulevard in 1965 and has thrived in spite of them. Now the county’s main art institution might be embarking on its riskiest adventure yet, expanding the duties of President and Chief Executive Officer Andrea L. Rich to include the key post of art director.

That is cause for concern among many who point out that almost every other major U.S. art museum is headed by an art specialist, which Rich is not. She came to LACMA from an administrative post at UCLA four years ago and has received high marks for her administrative skills at the museum.

In her tenure, museum membership has nearly doubled and the popular and economic successes of exhibitions such as “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs: Masterpieces From the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam,” have raised a substantial amount of money for LACMA. The recent Picasso and Diego Rivera exhibits have also drawn throngs. LACMA, like every other U.S. art museum, is faced with rising costs at a time of declining government support for the arts, and Rich has done a tremendous job raising revenues.

Still, the challenges she will now face in taking up the duties of Graham W.J. Beal, who is leaving to become director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, are considerable. LACMA is the largest encyclopedic art museum in the western United States but still is searching for its identity in the world of Southern California museums. Rich and her staff need to redefine priorities.

Museums leave their mark on art mostly through programs and exhibits that contribute to scholarship. All the shows that have brought big money and crowds to LACMA have been imported from other museums, created by curators from abroad.

Rich has promised to promote from within the institution. That’s a good start. She should let her own staff shine. LACMA has first-class managers and curators like Stephanie Barron, whose shows “The Russian Avant-Garde” (1980), “Degenerate Art” (1991) and “Exiles and Emigres” (1997) have been original and imaginative, sufficient for LACMA to consider getting into the business of exporting exhibits. Money and attendance alone will not earn LACMA the respect of its peers in the art arena, nor should it.

Working with her staff, Rich has set in motion an original exhibit, curated by Barron but involving every department in the museum. “Made in California,” to open in October 2000, will examine 100 years of art and culture in California. This is the kind of comprehensive and inventive show that LACMA should continue to do.