EXPOSITION PARK, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — George Lucas and Mellody Hobson on Saturday hosted an opening-night celebration for the long-awaited Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, giving invited guests an early look at the Exposition Park institution three days before it opens to the public.
The gala brought together artists, filmmakers and philanthropists for an early look inside the museum.
Founded by Lucas and Hobson, the five-story, 300,000-square-foot museum is devoted to visual storytelling across cultures, centuries and media, with works ranging from paintings, illustrations and photography to comics, murals and cinema.
“That’s why we’re all here — because they’re held in the highest regard,” Oprah Winfrey said in a red-carpet interview, referring to Lucas and Hobson. “And also because we want to see the stuff in there. We want to get inside and see all of it. You know what I mean?”
The museum features more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space across more than 30 galleries, with its inaugural exhibitions presenting more than 1,300 works from the collection
“We didn’t follow any rules,” Hobson told ABC7. “We didn’t work at a museum, we don’t have PhDs.”
According to Hobson, Lucas simply “took out a piece of white paper” and said “this is what I want it to be.”
“So some rules are broken, and some people don’t like it, but we do,” Hobson said. “And we think that the proof will be in the pudding, in terms of how people receive it.”
The $1 billion Exposition Park museum pairs “Star Wars” artifacts with comics, paintings, sculptures and other forms of visual storytelling.
Artists represented include Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Frank Frazetta, Diego Rivera, Gordon Parks, Charles Schulz, Robert Crumb and Judith F. Baca.
“It’s all about storytelling. That’s what narrative art is, and that’s what we are — the storytelling capital of the world,” Mayor Karen Bass said of the city of Los Angeles.
The museum’s cinema collection includes the complete Lucas Archives from 1971 to 2012. An inaugural exhibition titled “Star Wars in Motion” features concept designs, props and costumes associated with vehicles from the first six “Star Wars” films, including Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder and the first physical build of General Grievous’ Wheel Bike.
“It’s going to be an enormous draw,” actor Mark Hamill said. “As much as people want to come to Southern California, to Los Angeles, this is just another reason to make it a destination.”
The museum officially opens to the public Tuesday.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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