LACMA to take its 40th birthday into the wee hours

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is throwing itself a 40th anniversary bash into the wee hours Thursday night, but it is pointedly not looking to host the sort of party-out-of-bounds that made Milwaukee momentarily infamous in the museum world last month.

According to news reports in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Leader, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student paper, an event called Martinifest, in which paying $30 at the door got you all you could imbibe, turned the packed reception hall of the Milwaukee Art Museum into a vomit-stained bacchanalia Feb. 11, complete with carousers clambering onto statues and even diving from a balcony.

At LACMA, admission will be free, but the alcohol won’t be -- $5.50 for a beer, $6 for wine and $7 or $9 for liquor -- and, the museum’s president says, the barkeeps have instructions, as always, to cut off anybody showing signs of being under the influence of anything stronger than good vibes and the aura of fine art.

“All you could drink. We won’t be doing that,” LACMA President Melody Kanschat said, referring to the party in which Clear Channel Radio rented out the Milwaukee museum’s hall for a martini tasting. The museum’s director later acknowledged to the Journal Sentinel that it was “not an appropriate event to be held in the museum.” A museum spokeswoman said new booking and security policies are now in place.

When LACMA throws a party, or rents the premises to another organization, Kanschat said, security personnel from the museum’s regular staff are on hand to ensure that “all the rules are not only made by us, but enforced by us. We’re very keen on making sure people are not served if they’ve had too much alcohol. We make sure there are ample cabs available, and work closely with the LAPD. We make sure the people here are safe, and the art here is safe.”

The Late Night Birthday Bash, which begins at 7 p.m. Thursday and continues to 3 a.m., kicks off a long weekend in which LACMA will waive its usual $9 admission fee in honor of its 40th birthday. The blurb for the event on LACMA’s website puts art first in the pecking order of attractions for the late-nighter, followed by “film, cocktails, music, food, and more.”

The art consists of five exhibitions currently on display at the museum -- including a showing of recently acquired prints by Ed Ruscha; a selection of works, including pieces by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Joan Miro and Roy Lichtenstein, that were donated by LACMA supporter Robert H. Halff; and the first American museum survey of the design work of Ettore Sottsass. Attendees eager to take brush in hand will have opportunities to do some painting of their own, including contributing to a group mural supervised by artist Eder and destined for LACMA’s archives. The films are “Art School Confidential” and the Oscar-winning “Crash.” Soul singer N’dambi, soul-lounge group Cava and DJ Suckapunch will provide the soiree soundtrack.

Missing from the action Thursday night and the rest of the anniversary weekend will be LACMA’s most famous new visitors -- five paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, valued at $300 million, that had been looted by the Nazis and were recently returned to Los Angeles resident Maria Altmann and her family after a long court battle. The Klimt paintings will go on view Tuesday and remain through June 30. Kanschat said that “we just weren’t able to make it happen at the same time” as the anniversary celebration, because of logistical considerations she wouldn’t specify. She noted that folks wanting a free glimpse of the Klimts can take advantage of LACMA’s free-after-5 p.m. admission policy.

Free, all-night parties are turning into a LACMA tradition. The first two, in 2003 and 2004, went on till 7 a.m., drawing more than 8,000 people each time and presumably enabling the museum to introduce itself to a young demographic. This bash ends at 3 a.m. because the museum staff needs time to ready the premises for the rest of the anniversary weekend’s special events.

Kanschat said there’s no evidence yet that all-night partygoers are being transformed quickly into museum-going art devotees, but LACMA aims to use information gleaned from those who make reservations by phone or on its website (www.lacma.org) to market upcoming events and exhibitions that might lure them back.

LACMA’s county-supported sister institution, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, adopted the youth-oriented, late-night event strategy in 2004, debuting its monthly First Friday series in which a lecture about a current special exhibition is followed by live bands or DJs performing until midnight. Last June, Indie 103.1-FM, a rock radio station, rented one of the museum’s cavernous, diorama-lined mammal halls for a show by the L.A. band Autolux, and it went so well that the museum subsequently booked the band for one of its own First Fridays, museum spokeswoman Jennifer Westfall said. “We do sell alcohol, and have had zero problems,” she added. “It’s a partnership. You can’t just hand the museum over, which it sounds like Milwaukee did.”

The Museum of Contemporary Art is also staying up late, with Night Vision, a Saturday night series including DJs, films, food and a cash bar that will resume May 27 for the “Robert Rauschenberg: Combines” exhibition. MOCA inaugurated the program during last year’s Jean-Michel Basquiat retrospective.

Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that museums are under financial pressure to harness their facilities as rent- or audience-generating magnets after regular hours, and that it’s also in their interest to make them familiar and accessible dots on a community’s map of cool and inviting destinations. Because of the Milwaukee Art Museum debacle, “many museums are wondering how far do you push the traditional use of your facility,” Taylor said. “As long as they’re respectful to their mission and the artwork they’re supposed to be protecting, there’s no problem in staying up late.”