Southwest Museum Seeks Ways to Break Out of Box

“The Southwest Museum has a world-class collection, but it does not have a world-class museum,” says Duane King, director of the 94-year-old institution in Mount Washington. That has been the case for many years at the venerable but decrepit museum--where 99% of the 350,000 Native American artworks and artifacts are crammed into makeshift storage--but current discussions about joining forces with the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Griffith Park or the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in Temecula have thrust the Southwest’s chronic problems into sharp focus.

What’s more, King says, finding a solution to the museum’s physical and financial shortcomings--with or without a partner--is a matter of increasing urgency. Even if the museum allies itself with the relatively wealthy Autry Museum or the Pechangas, who operate a lucrative casino on their reservation, money must be raised. “We need to make a decision sooner rather than later,” he says, because neither private benefactors nor philanthropic organizations can be expected to support a museum that hasn’t charted its course.

To that end, the museum’s board of trustees will meet on Tuesday to formulate policies and procedures regarding possible alliances. The biggest issue on the table, however, is whether the museum can finally find a way to realize its potential.

Founded in 1907, the museum has occupied its landmark Mission Revival-style building in Mount Washington since 1914. Despite its charm, the facility is woefully antiquated. Exhibition space and parking are limited, rare textiles are rolled up in a former gallery, and pottery and baskets are stored without air-conditioning in a tower and in subterranean hideaways.

“For the past five years, the museum has operated in the black,” says King, who took charge in 1995. “But operating in the black and operating at an optimum level are two different things. To do justice to the collection and to the mission of the museum, we have to make the museum more accessible to the public.”

That means expanding, both on and off the historic site, he says. At Mount Washington, construction is expected to begin later this year on the Norman F. Sprague Cultural Resources Center, a $3-million open-storage facility named in honor of the longtime trustee whose family has supported the museum since its inception. The new building--designed to house many of the most vulnerable objects in the collection--will be finished before July 2003, when the Southwest Museum stop of the Blue Line light-rail system is scheduled to open, King says.

Helpful as those developments may be, the museum needs a presence elsewhere, he says. His predecessors came to the same conclusion, but to no avail. An effort to merge with Los Angeles County’s Museum of Natural History in 1987 was squelched by neighborhood groups who didn’t want the museum to lose its independence or relocate, and by charges that trustees who sat on both boards had a conflict of interest. A search for a new location during 1992-94 created another outcry about the loss to Mount Washington and ended with promises of city support that have never been fulfilled.

One attempt to increase the museum’s visibility was realized, however. The Southwest maintained a satellite exhibition space at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 1998 to 2000. “That was a very good experiment for us,” King says, noting that favorable reviews of exhibitions there and public access to prime portions of the collection increased awareness of the museum.

Discussions about working with the 13-year-old Autry Museum began long before King took charge of the Southwest Museum six years ago, but he looked into establishing an exhibition space there soon after his arrival. In 1999, when John L. Gray succeeded Joanne Hale as president and chief executive of the Autry, talks evolved into a tentative plan for a strategic alliance.

The draft proposal currently on the table calls for building a new Southwest Museum adjacent to the Autry, converting the existing Southwest Museum into a joint research center and governing the entire operation by a new National Center for the American West. Though the side-by-side museums would maintain separate identities and manage their exhibitions and collections separately, they would be governed by a single board and share security, membership and other behind-the-scenes operations.

Gaining permission to erect a new building on Griffith Park’s green space would be difficult if not impossible because of public resistance, as a 1999 attempt to establish a new Children’s Museum in the park proved. Even expanding into paved areas would require city approval, Gray says, but he thinks a new facility for the Southwest Museum could be accommodated within the footprint of the existing complex by extending the building over the back parking lot and opening up unused spaces.

No budget has been established for the project, but if it goes forward, the two museums would engage in joint fund-raising, Gray says. While the Autry’s $100-million endowment is far more than the Southwest’s $5-million endowment, it isn’t enough to construct and operate the proposed complex.

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Putting the Autry’s cowboy-oriented collection and the Southwest’s Native American holding under one roof is a volatile issue, however, and the proposal has stirred up considerable controversy.

Gray dismisses the cowboy and Indian symbolism as a cliche. “I think it’s an insult to any thinking person,” he says. “If there is one thing we believe in deeply here, it’s the development of the American West with a completely multicultural perspective. It’s the story of all the races, ethnicities, communities and genders that make up the American West.”

King contends that both the Autry and the Pechangas are worthy candidates for an alliance. On the one hand, he says, “The Autry Museum has a very good location, a very good physical plant and a very clear vision for the future. They also have good leadership and an educational program that is inclusive of all the ethnic groups that make up the fabric of this country.”

On the other hand, “because of [our] very long history with Native American groups and the rapport we have tried to build over the years, our board welcomes opportunities to discuss the future of the Southwest Museum with them and any interested party,” he says.

“The Southwest Museum is in a unique position in its relationship to Native Americans. Of the top five collections of Native American material in existence, this is the only one that is not part of a government-run museum and the only one in the Western United States. If there were ever an opportunity for an Indian tribe to have an alliance with a major Native American collection, this is the best one,” King says.

So far, the Pechanga band has submitted a letter of inquiry about an alliance. The museum has issued a statement soliciting alliances with additional “qualified institutions who can submit funded proposals to make [the museum’s] collections more accessible to the public.”

As to the possibility of forging multiple partnerships, King says the question hasn’t arisen. “At this point we are just going to have to take it one step at a time.”