George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to be Built in L.A.

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George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to be Built in L.A.

We finally have more information on the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and quite frankly, we’re impressed.

After flipping-flopping around different host city locations, George Lucas has officially announced that the Lucas Museum will be built in Los Angeles. The $1 billion museum will be funded entirely by Lucas himself, and is scheduled to begin construction by the end of the year with a projected completion date of 2021. While the museum will certainly hold quite a bit of rare Star Wars memorabilia, it will also be home to works by Edgar Degas and Norman Rockwell, original concept art and an expansive cinematic research library. In this way, the Lucas Museum hopes to disintegrate the divide between high art and popular art—“a barrier-free museum.” The official museum website explains:

By presenting a broad range of media, the Museum will bring to light how storytelling works in various art forms and various times and places. So, when you visit the Lucas Museum, you may see a 19th-century European painting alongside a 21st-century original Manga drawing—both bona fide works of narrative art. We invite art lovers of many different genres and of many different backgrounds to mingle. Works of vastly different types will co-exist in our galleries for comparison, contemplation and discussion.

The museum also promises public lectures, classes, workshops and daily film-screenings of both up-and-coming and renowned artists in state-of-the art theaters. Art Historian Don Bacigalupi, former President and Executive Director of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, will serve as founding president for the Lucas Museum. The extensive building will be designed by award-winning architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, and Los Angeles Renderings has released two concept design images of the appropriately futuristic-looking structure—see those below, and find out more about the Lucas Museum here.

Lucas Museum Concept Shot.jpg

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