Lights, Camera, Movie Museum

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-ca-lacma-academy-museum-20150412-story.html

Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Museum
Renzo Piano
Los Angeles, California
oscars.org

Hello Everyone:

Our birthday girl, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is about to get a new neighbor the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  The prospect of a museum dedicated to all things movies is particularly apropos for Los Angeles, the cinematic epicenter of the planet.  Film programming at LACMA is an ongoing commitment which will not end once the new museum is open.  Our birthday girl museum the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is seeing stars in her eyes.  Rebecca Keegan's article "LACMA sees the big picture as Academy moves in next door," for the Los Angeles Times, looks at the potential impact of putting a movie museum next to a capital-A art museum.

May Company Building then (1939) and now (2013)
Albert C. Marting & S.A, Marx
miraclemilela.com

In 2012, the AMPAS announced that it found a home for its proposed Academy Museum, a mere iPhone's throw away from LACMA.  No sooner did AMPAS open the envelop and reveal the winner of "best movie museum site," the old May Company building designed by Albert C. Martin and S.A. Marx, museum director Michael Govan began fielding concerns from colleagues.  Quoting Mr. Govan, Ms. Keegan writes,

Many people said to me, You're crazy to invite a movie museum next to LACMA, given that the movies are the thing in Los Angeles...Don't you think that all the donors are going to fund the movie museum and that you've just ruined your future?

An optimistic Mr. Govan believes that when the movie museum opens in 2017, "both institutions will benefit from their proximity and from the eventual creation of an arts hub beside a subway stop scheduled to open in 2016."  Mr. Govan continues,

What together we're doing is creating this anchor for Los Angeles...That is critical mass.  The largest film museum in the world and the largest art museum in the western U.S.  We're bending toward each other programmatically.  The idea is that, in the middle of Los Angeles, the big cultural offering is art and film.  No one else has that."

An arts hub dedicated to art and film is something that blogger could see spending time.

Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Museum TheaterSection drawing
Renzo Piano
blogs.artinfo.com

Construction on the AMPAS Museum is expected to begin this summer at the venerable May Co. building.  Renzo Piano, the architect of the Resnick Pavilion on the LACMA campus, designed an dome-shaped, 1,000 seat theater addition to the Streamline Deco landmark ignominiously dubbed "Death Star."  Ms. Keegan describes the museum, "The museum will contain more than 290,000 square feet of galleries, exhibition spaces and movie theaters." AMPAS Museum Director Kerry Brougher has declared his intention to offer programming to film scholars and regular movie fans.  Mr. Brougher has not specified exactly what plans to exhibit, however his resume provides some clue about his interests.  Ms. Keegan writes, "As interim director at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, director at the Modern Art Museum Oxford Museum in Britain and curator at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art from its in 1983 to 1997, Brougher organized exhibitions on directors Alfred Hitchcock and Steve McQueen and organized shows on experimental work by filmmakers like Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow."

May Company Building under construction
oscars.org

 Both museums will be separate institutions, but they will be connect by more than sharing the same site.  The AMPAS Museum signed a $36 million, 55-year lease for the May Co. building and adjacent land from the art museum.  Accessioning the land was the culmination internal discussions regarding the need for a museum dating as far back as 1929, according to AMPAS Chief Executive Officer Dawn Hudson.  Citing Ms. Hudson, Rebecca Keegan writes,

This museum was a long-held dream for the academy...It wasn't until this building, that the opportunity presented itself.  It represents a lot to us, on a campus where there are already a million visitors coming to LACMA.

An earlier plan to build a movie museum in Hollywood fell through after the stock market crash in 2008.

A scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
"Haunted Screens: German Cinema In The 1920s"
September 21, 2014-April 26, 2015
lacma.org

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art already has film programming in place, including a recent Stanley Kubrick retrospective and the current "Haunted Screens: German Cinema In The 1920s," mounted in conjunction with Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies and AMPAS's Margret Herrick Library.  (http://www.lacma.org)  The art museum would continue its film program. Michael Govan seemed vague on whether or not his museum would steer clear of the AMPAS Museum' s territory.  Quoting Mr. Govan, Ms. Keegan writes,

We have no intention of not programming film here...We see film as a growing commitment at LACMA.  You've seen it in our exhibition program...There's room.  Hopefully the academy will continue working with us on exhibition programs, and we'll have the opportunity to do an occasional event in their theater.

From the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA
movies.com

According to Dawn Hudson, "...the academy, which is engaged in the city's public approval process, has raised more than $225 million of the $300 million it needs to build the museum."  Large gifts were presented to the movie museum by David Geffen, who also acquired the naming rights to the theater, as well as Chinese business conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, Dolby Laboratories, Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.  Although most of the funding comes from its annual awards telecast, museum fundraising is new territory.  In another sign of interweaving of both institutions, Walt Disney Company Chairperson Bob Iger is in charge of the fundraising campaign and his wife, journalist, Willow Bay is on the art museum's board.  Citing Ms. Hudson, Ms. Keegan writes,

I don't think of fundraising for the arts as a zero sum game...When you develop a culture of philanthropy, it only encourages more philanthropy.  More giving leads to more giving.  Generous donors lead to generous donors.  There's been a lot of support of sciences and medicines in Los Angeles, but seeing our art form as an art and a history that needs to be supported is new for our industry.