Interesting revelations concerning energy giant BP and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) were made in a March 6th, 2007, article by the Los Angeles Times. The paper revealed that sometime in 2006 the chairman and president of BP America, Bob Malone, asked billionaire Eli Broad – who is heavily financing LACMA’s reconstruction – to recommend causes in…
Eli Broad is ranked by FORBES as number 42 on its list of 400 richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of over $5.8 billion dollars. Touted as a philanthropist interested in raising the cultural profile of Los Angeles, Mr. Broad, whose name rhymes with “load,” has been busy putting his stamp on L.A. He was the founding chairman of…
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), after receiving $25 million dollars from the multinational oil company BP (British Petroleum), plans to dedicate a new entry gate and pavilion to the energy Goliath. To be christened the “BP Grand Entrance”, it is nothing more than an edifice to big oil and the clearest example yet of the increasing corporatization…
As an aficionado of modernist aesthetics and goals, my heart took flight when I read that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was offering an important new exhibit on modernism, The Modern West. LACMA claims The Modern West offers “a fresh and innovative look at modernism through a very personal lens,” however, in the museum’s publicity, the use of…
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced it will sell 42 paintings, including masterworks by Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro, in order to raise the capital necessary to make acquisitions of “modern works.” But for LACMA to abruptly get rid of 42 “redundant and unrepresentative” artworks in order to purchase new art begs the question;…
I saw the Treasures of Tutankhamen when it showed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1978. At the time the entrance fee was $2 (today’s equivalent adjusted for inflation would be $6). After nearly 30 years the treasures have returned to LACMA as a razzle dazzle Hollywood road show called Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of…
