{"id":614308,"date":"2026-09-04T13:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/614308\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T13:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T13:52:09","slug":"im-used-to-doing-the-impossible-george-lucas-unveils-new-la-museum-whats-its-story-museums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/614308\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m used to doing the impossible\u2019: George Lucas unveils new LA museum \u2013 what\u2019s its story? | Museums"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m used to doing the impossible,\u201d George Lucas<\/a> said on Wednesday. But \u201cthis one almost broke my will\u201d.<\/p>\n

The film-maker was describing the decades of work that went into his latest project, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, as it was unveiled to the press in Los Angeles<\/a> eight years after breaking ground, following attempts to build it in two other cities. Shaped like a spaceship and towering over the nearby University of Southern California \u2013 Lucas\u2019s alma mater \u2013 the long-awaited institution finally opens on 22 September. It aims to be a testament to visual storytelling across all kinds of media \u2013 paintings, comics, murals, photography, sculpture.<\/p>\n

The result is 100,000 sq ft of gallery space featuring a striking variety of pieces, ranging from works by Judy Baca, Norman Rockwell<\/a>, Diego Rivera and Banksy to the Wizard of Oz\u2019s Cowardly Lion costume to drawings of Asterix and Garfield. What unites the seemingly disparate works is their function: to tell a story, often in a single frame, as Lucas\u2019s co-founder and wife, Mellody Hobson, told members of the press on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Visual storytelling \u201cis the art that surrounds us\u201d, said Ryan Linkof, the museum\u2019s senior curator. \u201cIt is the art in the visual history that we assume every day, often without even realizing it. Newspaper photographs, advertisements, book covers, comic books, posters, street art, movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the founders of the Lucas museum. Photograph: Deanna Templeton\/Courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

The couple sees this storytelling as fundamental to the human experience. Narrative art \u201cdepicts the myths that anchor us, the stories that we believe in\u201d, Hobson said; pictures, Lucas added, make those myths feel real. All that \u201ccreates a group of people with a common belief system, and that common belief system allows them to work together and not kill each other\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Lucas museum is divided into two sections, one containing most of the galleries and a pair of cinemas, and the other housing its mural collection as well as a research library. With its sleek, flying-saucer-like design, it\u2019s impossible not to think of Star Wars<\/a>, though the museum\u2019s architect, Ma Yansong, says he was inspired more by tree canopies and clouds. A plaza between the sections offers shade as well as an oculus: a round opening that allows visitors to \u201csee the sky and the universe\u201d, Yansong told the media.<\/p>\n

The museum\u2019s construction is a saga of its own. Lucas began collecting art in the 1970s and over the years combined his collection with Hobson\u2019s, Bates said. About 20 years ago, according to Bates, Lucas began working toward the museum\u2019s creation. Plans for it to be built in San Francisco or Chicago fell through. Finally, the project broke ground in Los Angeles in 2018, and eight years later, it is ready to open. LA, Hobson told the media, is \u201cwhere we believe we were always meant to be\u201d. Bates agreed: \u201cThe largest, most popular form of narrative art is cinema. So what better space for it to be than the home of storytelling?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Robert Flaherty theater in the Lucas museum in Los Angeles. Photograph: Lou Caltabiano\/Courtesy Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

The ground floor features a brief tour through thousands of years of visual storytelling, beginning with an immersive reproduction of cave paintings before moving to paintings, mosaics and sculptures \u2013 some original, some reproduced \u2013 depicting stories from ancient civilizations and the Bible. The exhibition sets the historical context for the museum\u2019s core collection, mostly from the 20th and 21st centuries, reached via round glass elevators that do nothing to dispel the Star Wars aura.<\/p>\n

The galleries here are sorted into an odd mix of categories. There are rooms that focus on medium \u2013 the comics room contains strips from Krazy Kat, Little Orphan Annie, The Adventures of Tintin and Superman; the children\u2019s stories room contains art from Where the Wild Things Are and fairytale illustrations; the manga room features Astro Boy and a portrait of Pikachu.<\/p>\n

Other rooms are divided by theme: the \u201ccommunity\u201d area contains neighborhood scenes by Ernie Barnes and a Frida Kahlo<\/a> self-portrait; the \u201cchildhood\u201d area hosts a Margaret Keane painting, Children of Paris, and a Picasso drawing titled Little Girl; \u201ccivic life\u201d features photography of a 1968 sanitation workers\u2019 strike and a painting by Shepard Fairey and Ernesto Yerena Montejano opposing immigration raids.<\/p>\n

The Critic\u2019s Corner by renowned African American artist Ernie Barnes. Photograph: Matt Kroening\/Courtesy Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

Still other galleries are organized by single artists \u2013 NC Wyeth, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish \u2013 and others by genre: science fiction, fantasy, adventure. And while this is very much not a Star Wars museum, it has plenty to offer fans, including an exhibit that focuses on modes of transportation in the films and contains vehicle models, production artwork and costumes. (There are other surprise nods to the films around the museum.)<\/p>\n

Finally, there is the mural room, with some of the museum\u2019s most memorable pieces. A video traces the length of Judith Baca\u2019s mural of the region\u2019s history along the Los Angeles River; nearby are several Banksy works on walls that have been extracted and hung in the space. There\u2019s also a huge image of the French artist JR\u2019s Kikito<\/a>, an installation that shows a child looking over the US-Mexico border wall.<\/p>\n

Each work has a small plaque giving its title and year, the artist\u2019s name and the materials used. But there isn\u2019t much else on the walls to tell visitors what they\u2019re viewing \u2013 no blurbs or lengthy descriptions. That was deliberate, Linkof said. Lucas and the curators didn\u2019t want a \u201cheavily mediated\u201d experience, telling people \u201cwhere to look, how to look, what to think, how to understand and interpret something\u201d, he said. \u201cWe\u2019re encouraging people to have their own individual encounters with works of art and take away what they feel like speaks to them.\u201d That said, those who are curious about a work\u2019s origins or context can scan the images with their phone to get a brief description of who made the work and why.<\/p>\n

Rafael Navarro\u2019s Son\u00e1mbulo: Mexican Stand-Off. Photograph: Courtesy Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

Many of the artists here are well-known, but as the museum\u2019s leadership emphasizes, they often don\u2019t receive the same institutional respect their peers do. John Romita Jr\u2019s Spider-Man panels don\u2019t tend to appear in museums that also feature the Sistine Chapel ceiling, re-created here with backlit photography. \u201cRockwell in his day was not considered an artist, more an advertising illustrator, but actually, the process, the level of depth in those images \u2013 he is one of our greatest storytellers,\u201d said Tracey Bates, the museum\u2019s CEO, in an interview. With the museum, Lucas and Hobson \u2013 who call the Sistine Chapel \u201cGod\u2019s first comic book\u201d, Bates says \u2013 hope to elevate the standing of these visual storytellers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many of us here in this room have learned to face our fears because of the work of Maurice Sendak, or learn moral lessons while studying EH. Shepard\u2019s drawings of the 100 Acre Wood?\u201d Bates asked. \u201cGeorge calls it the People\u2019s Art<\/a>, and this museum is its home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m used to doing the impossible,\u201d George Lucas said on Wednesday. But \u201cthis one almost broke my will\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-614308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}