At Art + Film gala, LACMA celebrates coming ‘unstuck,’ with new building 50% done
October 10, 2014 | LACMA| The Art + Film gala — a gathering of the arts, music and film in the Museum of Latin American Art — took place on Sept. 27, 2014, to celebrate the completion of a major new wing on the museum’s main site.
LACMA has been on the cutting edge since its conception 25 years ago. At the time of its founding, the museum was a project by a small group of dedicated volunteers, and was housed in a modest space on the northern edge of Washington Square Park, which opened to the public a year later.
Today, the museum is a model of efficiency and growth. In addition to its central campus in downtown L.A., it has expanded to its current site at the base of the Los Angeles State Historic Park, on what was originally a horse stable that was converted into a historic home.
In addition to its new, expansive space, the Art + Film gala — which also included a performance by Luscious Jackson, who plays for TV and radio — honored the museum’s commitment to education by announcing the creation of new programs and programs that will reach hundreds of thousands of people, and to the organization’s growing role as a model for civic engagement in Los Angeles by providing free public programs in multiple languages at the museum and at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, and by hosting free monthly community meetings.
In a way, LACMA was founded to be a model. This was something the museum’s founders envisioned from the beginning: to serve as a catalyst to spark the civic education movement in the city of Los Angeles, and to educate the public on the history of the city and the region.
“It’s exciting that we’re having this gala,” said Tomás Mejía, a museum curator active in the effort to develop public programming at LACMA. “We are not just a museum. We are a cultural institution that wants to serve as a bridge to the community.”
At LACMA, the museum’s educational mission serves as the core of its mission.
LACMA is a national cultural institution that operates from a site in downtown Los Angeles, with a regional mandate to engage with its surroundings.
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