The forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles has laid off 15 full-time staff, representing 14 % of its full-time workers. An extra seven part-time staff additionally had their roles eradicated, in keeping with the Los Angeles Instances, which first reported the information.
In a press release despatched to ARTnews, the Lucas Museum mentioned the full-time cuts largely affected its Studying & Engagement and Museum Providers groups. Regardless of cuts to its training groups, the museum mentioned, “Training stays a central pillar of the Lucas Museum. One of many foremost causes Los Angeles’s Exposition Park was chosen as the situation for the museum was its proximity to different museums, USC, and greater than 400 faculties in a five-mile radius. … Academic program plans are nonetheless in growth, and we stay up for sharing extra nearer to opening.”
The Lucas Museum, based by ARTnews Prime 200 collectors George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, has been within the works for over a decade. Previous to the choice to open the museum in Los Angeles in 2016, Lucas and Hobson had thought-about websites in San Francisco and Chicago. Estimated to value $1 billion, the museum has confronted a number of delays attributable to supply-chain points, which noticed it delayed first to 2025 after which to 2026. It was initially scheduled to open in 2023.
In February, the Lucas Museum announced a leadership transition that noticed Sandra Jackson-Dumont, its then director and CEO, step down after 5 years. Her final day on the museum was April 1. As a part of the transition, her function was cut up in two, with Lucas main the inventive route of the establishment and Jim Gianopulos, a former chairman and CEO of twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Photos, serving as an interim CEO, whereas it searches for a everlasting CEO.
Included within the cuts, in keeping with the LA Instances and confirmed by the Lucas Museum to ARTnews, are Regan Professional, deputy director of public packages and social influence, and Bernardo Rondeau, curator of movie packages.
Previous to becoming a member of the Lucas in 2021, Professional had been the deputy director for training and public engagement on the Seattle Artwork Museum, the place Jackson-Dumont had beforehand been director.
Rondeau joined the museum in 2023 after serving for greater than eight years as founding director of movie packages for the Academy Museum of Movement Photos. On LinkedIn, he mentioned he was attending the Cannes Movie Competition when he was knowledgeable. “I’m deeply grateful for the time I’ve spent there and for the various proficient folks I’ve had the privilege to work with,” his submit reads.
“Because the Lucas Museum progresses as an establishment from planning to implementing to opening, we’ve evaluated our present organizational construction and decided that modifications have been wanted,” the museum’s assertion reads. “It’s a tremendously troublesome resolution to reorganize roles and to get rid of workers, however the restructure will enable the museum’s groups to work extra effectively to deliver the museum to life for the general public. The museum may even proceed hiring new roles in strategic operational areas in anticipation of the 2026 opening.”
