Dear fellow LACMA Lover,

Thank you for joining more than 1790 concerned citizens who have signed the petition urging the Los Angeles County Supervisors to reconsider their approval of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for LACMA's redevelopment plan.

There’s been a small flurry of LACMA-related reporting in recent days, and we write to get you caught up.

Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight expresses alarm at ethical violations exposed by LACMA Director Michael Govan’s underwhelming work for international gallery Hauser & Wirth: “A commercial exhibition conceived and assembled by a nonprofit museum director who is the head of a county department subsidized by taxpayers, on the other hand, creates an ethical swamp of considerable depth. Neither LACMA’s board of trustees nor the L.A. County Board of Supervisors should stand for it.”

Also in the Los Angeles Times and Archinect, we learn that “Fundraising for LACMA's new building has stalled as costs balloon” as the “museum turns into a ghost town.”

And in the first piece of reporting by a non-anonymous museum worker, a recent LACMA intern blows the whistle on the privatization of this ostensibly public encyclopedic museum, and gives us a weather report from the besieged staff: "I learned underground information about how LACMA runs like a unilateral business. My boss told me only the Board of Trustees and the director Michael Govan had a say in LACMA’s reconstruction."

And in other Los Angeles museum (and “museum”) news, the private Marciano Art Foundation has shut down rather than negotiate with its striking minimum wage workers, and MOCA will become free in the new year thanks to a generous gift from its board president. Imagine all LACMA could do if its sixteen billionaire board members went back to the drawing board!

The Save LACMA nonprofit continues to advocate for a different solution to the museum’s future needs, through public and private work. Find out more at http://www.ourlacma.org

Please keep sharing the petition link (http://chng.it/PBQw6hhzdX) with your friends who love LACMA and want it to remain at the heart of our city's culture and community. And stay tuned for updates as we have them.

Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim Cooper & Richard Schave
The LACMA Lovers League