Armed guards carrying clubs and loaded guns now patrol the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), the latest addition to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. No less than three armed guards have been seen patrolling the BCAM, with one security officer assigned to watch over Damien Hirst’s installation Away from the Flock – a dead lamb pickled in…
[ Spiral Jetty – Robert Smithson. 1970. The famous earthwork construction in Utah imperiled by oil drilling. ] A story by Kirk Johnson titled Plans to Mix Oil Drilling and Art Clash in Utah, appeared in the March 27th edition of the New York Times. The article details how oil drilling in the Great Salt Lake of Utah may threaten…
Tables at the elite soirée cost $25,000 (silver), $50,000 (gold) or $100,000 (platinum). Guests included Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger and California’s first lady Maria Shriver, as well as Tom Cruise, Christina Aguilera and a bevy of Hollywood stars. And what was the occasion? – the ostentatious debut party for the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), which houses the modern art collection…
In March of this year I wrote an exposé that uncovered the relationship between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the multinational oil company, BP (British Petroleum). LACMA is expanding and renovating its facilities, and it has taken $25 million dollars from BP as a “gift” towards the projected cost of the reconstruction, which is $191 million….
Jed Perl is the art critic for The New Republic, and after reading his essay, Laissez-Faire Aesthetics: What money is doing to art, or how the art world lost its mind, it’s not hard to understand why his opinion of contemporary art is generally reviled in some quarters. While I disagree with aspects of Perl’s critique, he still manages to…
I’m not sure just when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired the services of the high-powered public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton, Inc. (H&K), but I first noticed the PR firm’s name included as a media contact on an official LACMA press release dated Feb. 3, 2006. The announcement was for the appointment of Michael Govan as…
On February 1st, 2007, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art CEO Michael Govan and postmodernist “King of Kitsch” Jeff Koons, were featured speakers at a LACMA public event billed as a conversation on “the role of artists in shaping the museum of the future.” At the event the duo publicly announced plans to erect Koons’ Train, an enormous structure made…
UPDATED Jan. 18, 2017: The last available record of Michael Govan’s annual compensation as director of LACMA was made available in 2014; his pay was listed as $1,029,921. LACMA also provides Govan with a free $5-million dollar home; the New York Times noted that benefit is worth “$126,500 a year, according to tax fillings.” Mr. Govan’s salary is now considerably…
