More cultural institutions will reopen to the public Thursday following COVID-19 closures, with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Natural History.
Print
As visitors venture back to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, shuttered for a year because of COVID-19 and reopening Thursday, they will find many changes.
Some, but not all, are a result of the pandemic.
I visited during members’ previews. That afternoon, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters that she felt a sense of “impending doom,” given sudden infection spikes. That gave me pause.
To protect patrons’ health, familiar precautions are in place at LACMA. Ticket reservations made online or by phone are necessary to keep attendance at reduced levels. Masks are mandatory, health screening (including a temperature check) and contact tracing data are required, and traffic flow directions are in place inside galleries. Exhibition text panels have been replaced by QR codes.
More cultural institutions will reopen to the public Thursday following COVID-19 closures, with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Natural History.
In 2019, local activists hosted a feminist performance piece titled “Un violador en tu camino” (A Rapist in Your Path) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. First brought to life by feminist art collective LasTesis from Chile, the performance involved hundreds of women, who shuffled and chanted a chorus that would become a powerful global feminist anthem: “Y la culpa no era mía / ni dónde estaba / ni cómo vestía.” (And the fault was not mine.
Photo by Gina Cholick. Courtesy of NHMLAC
After a year of lockdown due to the pandemic, all of the four major museums along Miracle Mile’s Museum Row have or will soon open, with safety protocols in place. The first among them is the Petersen Automotive Museum, 6060 Wilshire Blvd., which had its rollout last month. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is set to open April 1, and the La Brea Tar Pits Museum follows on April 8. At the Petersen Museum, three exhibits that were launched during the pandemic are on view: “Supercars: A Century of Spectacle and Speed,” “Extreme Conditions” and “Redefining Performance,” featuring Porsche’s most innovative road and race vehicles.