The Art Of Lucas

Travel

Audio By Carbonatix

Let’s get the obvious question out of the way.

Yes, there will be Star Wars.

There will be Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder. Costumes. Concept drawings. Props. Even General Grievous’s Wheel Bike.

But when the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens September 22 in Los Angeles, walking in expecting a giant shrine to Darth Vader would be missing the point spectacularly.

George Lucas built something considerably more ambitious.

He built a museum about why human beings tell stories.

And I want to see it.

From Cave Walls to a Galaxy Far, Far Away

The numbers alone make this a destination.

The futuristic building, designed by Ma Yansong, stretches across 300,000 square feet in Exposition Park, with more than 100,000 square feet of galleries and a new 13-acre park surrounding it. Opening exhibitions will display more than 1,300 works across 30-plus galleries. 

But then you see who’s hanging on the walls.

Norman Rockwell. Frida Kahlo. Vincent van Gogh. Diego Rivera. Beatrix Potter. Charles Schulz. Gordon Parks. Banksy.

There are comic books and murals, children’s illustrations and photography, Renaissance imagery and cinema.

And, yes, Star Wars.

Because Lucas’s argument is essentially this: they’re all doing the same thing.

They’re telling us stories with pictures.

This Could Be Fantastic

Museums traditionally separate “fine art” from popular culture. A Van Gogh belongs in one building. Charlie Brown belongs somewhere else. Movie concept art probably doesn’t belong in either.

Lucas throws out the rulebook.

Here, comics, movies, illustration and painting get to occupy the same conversation.

Even the opening Star Wars in Motion exhibition isn’t simply memorabilia. It explores how artists created the illusion of movement through vehicles and machines across Lucas’s first six films. 

Then there’s the research library, open free to the public, containing more than 30,000 comic books, rare books and archives—and approximately 2,900 volumes from mythologist Joseph Campbell’s personal library, some containing his own annotations. Campbell’s “hero’s journey,” of course, profoundly influenced Lucas while he was creating Star Wars. 

That’s the room I’d disappear into.

Make It a Los Angeles Day

The location helps enormously.

The museum sits in Exposition Park beside some of Los Angeles’s major cultural attractions, making this something considerably better than another Hollywood sightseeing stop.

And when your feet finally surrender, there’s even a destination restaurant called Skywalker Grill.

Come on.

I don’t care how sophisticated the art discussion has been all afternoon.

I’m ordering something there.

The Lucas Museum opens September 22.

Go for George Lucas.

Go expecting Star Wars.

But don’t be surprised if somewhere between Rockwell, Rivera, Charlie Brown and Luke Skywalker, you realize Lucas hasn’t really built a museum about movies at all.

He’s built one about us.

And the stories we’ve been telling one another since somebody first put a picture on a cave wall. 

Plan a visit to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art⁠.