Michael Govan’s bright ideas

FIFTEEN months ago, when news of Michael Govan’s appointment as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art rocked the art world, he described L.A. as “the future” -- and its central art museum as “a sleeping giant.” LACMA, he thought, had lots of possibilities and lots of unfulfilled potential.

The wake-up call came fast. On the job just more than a year, Govan has rejiggered an ambitious expansion and renovation project designed by architect Renzo Piano, recruited high-powered trustees and shaken up the exhibition program. He has envisioned a museum that views its history through Latin America and Asia, and its future through contemporary artists. But his perception of LACMA as a snoozing Goliath hasn’t changed.

“It is a sleeping giant,” he says. “It’s this amazing place. It’s got a great collection. It’s done great things in the past. But we are the second city in culture, and where does our museum rank? Certainly not No. 2. You have to go down the list a bit.”

How far?

“I’ll let you do that.”

Succeeding Andrea L. Rich, who concentrated on administrative affairs during her 10-year tenure, Govan couldn’t have been expected to transform the museum in a year. A prominent figure in New York’s elite contemporary art circles, he had risen from second in command at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to the top job at the Dia Art Foundation. At Dia, he led a privately funded cultural institution that collects contemporary art and supports large outdoor projects, and oversaw a $50-million campaign to convert an old Nabisco factory in Beacon, N.Y., into a vast exhibition space. In Los Angeles, he would take charge of the largest encyclopedic art museum in the Western states -- a sprawling institution that embraces the entire history of art, maintains a 100,000-piece collection, serves many constituencies, supports itself with a mixture of public and private money and operates on about $44 million a year. Keeping the museum on track would be difficult; steering it onto a higher plane would be a major challenge, especially for a newcomer.

“One of the big things you have to do in Year One is to listen,” says Govan, a trim, impeccably groomed 43-year-old who has highly developed social skills but no fear of expressing his opinion. “You need to get to know people and what their objectives are, develop working relationships,” he says, sliding into a black leather chair in a colleague’s office at the museum while his office undergoes some repairs. But he hasn’t wasted time while getting acquainted.

In the first round of an effort to enlarge and strengthen the board of trustees, he has recruited writer and filmmaker Michael Crichton, singer and actress Barbra Streisand, journalist Willow Bay, investor Anthony N. Pritzker and technology entrepreneurs Terry Semel, David Bohnett and Chris DeWolfe, increasing the working membership to 44.

The first phase of Piano’s expansion -- a $156-million project including the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, funded by LACMA trustee Eli Broad and scheduled to open Feb. 9 -- was underway before Govan arrived. But he has taken a hands-on approach, transforming the new entry pavilion to focus on art rather than visitor services and enlisting artists to enliven surrounding spaces. A bold proposal to mark the museum’s entrance with Jeff Koons’ “Train,” a 70-foot replica of a 1943 locomotive dangling from a 160-foot crane, may not go anywhere. But plans for a garden of palm trees by Robert Irwin and an installation of vintage Los Angeles streetlights by Chris Burden are in the works.

Most renovations of existing buildings are scheduled for the second phase of LACMA’s redo, intended to unify and update a jumble of mismatched structures. But under Govan’s direction, the gallery for Greek and Roman art on the second floor of the Ahmanson Building already has undergone a startling change. A wall that covered large windows on Wilshire Boulevard has been removed, allowing marble sculptures to bask in natural light.

No deal is too done

THE museum’s exhibition program is set years in advance, but Govan has put his stamp on that too. He and senior curator Stephanie Barron invited artist John Baldessari to install “Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images,” turning what might have been a conventional exhibition into a popular and critical hit. Baldessari effectively turned the galleries upside down by putting a Magritte-style carpet of blue sky and fluffy white clouds on the floor and a modular rendition of a freeway system on the ceiling.

And new exhibitions have been squeezed into the schedule. The largest, opening today, is “Dan Flavin: A Retrospective,” a comprehensive traveling survey of the late Minimalist’s career, including about 40 of his trademark fluorescent light works. Co-curated by Govan and Tiffany Bell, director of the artist’s catalogue raisonne, the show was scheduled to end its tour in Munich, Germany, in March. Govan arranged to bring it to Los Angeles with a new feature -- a reconstruction of lighted corridors made for the E.F. Hauserman Co. showroom formerly at L.A.’s Pacific Design Center.

Among other additions, last winter Barron and fellow curator Kevin Salatino quickly organized “Picasso’s Greatest Print: The Minotauromachy in All Its States,” the first U.S. presentation of the eight etchings. Curator Tim Wride whipped out “Re-SITE-ing the West: Contemporary Photographs From the Permanent Collection” to accompany a long-planned traveling show, “The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950,” both of which run through June 3. “SoCal: Southern California Art of the 1960s and ‘70s From LACMA’s Collection,” organized by curator Carol S. Eliel, will appear in mid-August.

“The level of activity is intense here,” says Nancy Thomas, deputy director. “Michael is planning for the long term, laying a deep and sustainable framework for future growth. That’s surprising when we have a major building opening soon and galleries being moved around, but he thinks two steps ahead. I’d say 10 steps ahead.”

Jeremy Strick, director of L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, says Govan has brought “tremendous energy” to the museum -- and the city. “Los Angeles has been seen as a great international art center increasingly over a number of years,” Strick says. “I think his arrival at LACMA gave new momentum to that trend. Michael has had success in building LACMA’s board and raising expectations for trusteeship. He has expressed determination that LACMA should rise to the standard of a great encyclopedic museum in a great international city. That has a positive impact throughout the community.”

Govan is pleased with what’s been accomplished, much of which he attributes to long-range plans developed over several years before he arrived. But he’s disappointed that he hasn’t made much progress with the permanent collection.

“We have had some stunning acquisitions. The Eakins painting was a fabulous addition,” he says, referring to “Wrestlers,” an 1899 work by American realist Thomas Eakins donated in December by Cecile C. Bartman and the Cecile and Fred Bartman Foundation. “But I have to say I am surprised that there is not more generosity. Look at what the community of Seattle just gave the museum,” he says of nearly 1,000 artworks donated to the Seattle Art Museum in honor of its 75th anniversary. “I think they are valued at a billion dollars. The Whitney Museum in New York a few years ago announced a trustee effort to add several hundred million dollars’ worth of new art. You would think in a city as wealthy and ambitious as Los Angeles there would be more direct generosity directed to the museums. The idea of building this place for future generations is not really up to the level of the city, at all.

“There are pockets,” he says. “The Ahmanson family is a great example. They don’t buy for themselves; they buy for the museum. The collection they have given the museum is worth well over a hundred million dollars. But what you notice in other cities is a thrill to go after the very best for the museum. It’s not that we don’t have a very good collection. It’s not that we can’t build a great museum. It’s just surprising that you don’t find more desire to really go after the best pieces and bring them to Los Angeles.”

Straight-talker that he may be, Govan is not a complainer.

“Michael is the most optimistic person I have ever worked with,” says LACMA President Melody Kanschat. “He really believes anything we set out to do can happen. His focus on the long term, on what something will be when it’s complete, has been wonderful for the construction team. It’s helped them to see that everybody is working to make something happen, and it will happen. It was very late to insert something like Bob Irwin’s palm trees into the project, but because of Michael’s optimism, I’ve got teams of people who should be saying ‘No way’ saying ‘Oh, maybe.’ ”

True to form, Govan has a bright vision of LACMA’s future.

“The big task,” he says, “is to frame a narrative of culture and art that is compelling and specific to Los Angeles, but with international relevance. That is what I see as the ultimate objective. A point of view that can be crafted here, looking from where we look at the world. The public is going to see a lot of construction because we absolutely need the physical facilities. Our metropolis has over 10 million people. We need a physical facility that really lives up to that. But it’s not just about building buildings. We need a worldview and a viewpoint.”

Art in the hands of artists

LIVING artists will help to shape that view, says Govan, who has hosted public discussions with Koons, Irwin and video artist Diana Thater. The spirit of Baldessari’s “Magritte” installation lives in the museum’s boardroom and in Govan’s office, floors of which are covered with some of the sky-like carpet used in the galleries. Koons and Burden have made personal appearances at board meetings, presenting their projects to the trustees.

“After Chris Burden talked, we had the rest of the meeting in the Magritte show,” Govan says. “I want to make the board meetings engaging. These are volunteers from the community who are spending a good part of their lives, their time, their intelligence, their resources on this place, so I do want it to be an engaging process.”

To those who fear that LACMA may be putting too much focus on contemporary art, Govan says: “All art is made by artists. The dynamic between the art and the artist is a fundamentally interesting territory of investigation. When I look at art history, I am always interested in the circumstances of the work being made. It’s not just that it exists as a precious object. Art that’s great is always new.

“Artists have an incredible talent to help you work through issues,” he says. “In other times and other places, if you were going to build anything, if you were the pope or a politician or a private person, you would always engage artists in the process and the thinking. One of the things I’m trying to bring to this place is that involvement with artists. It’s not a new idea. We are just revitalizing it.”

Contemporary art will be on center stage in February when the Broad building opens with pieces from LACMA’s holdings and the Broad Art Foundation’s collection. That’s “huge,” Govan says, and he isn’t talking about size.

“What happens is that the museum property gets consolidated, Ogden Drive disappears, parking goes underground and BCAM gives us something new and of very high quality. It clears the ground, primes the canvas by clarifying the site. Once that is functioning with that level of architecture, clarity and generosity of space for art, that sets the bar for what the museum campus should be overall. Once we have done that for contemporary art, our obligation is to do that for the whole history of art.”

LACMA should not pattern itself after East Coast museums that base their worldview on European art history, he says. “We should be leaders. That’s where having an edge on contemporary art is a big investment. I’d also like to privilege pre-Columbian art, art of the ancient Americas, as a frame for the past. These are natural ways to reframe art history from a Los Angeles viewpoint, and that is what we are obligated to do.

“The content of the museum should reflect the fact that our community is Wilshire Boulevard, the county of Los Angeles, the state of California, the Western United States. There is an outlook shared by the Western states. I don’t mean red versus blue, but culturally coming from wide open space, coming from a relationship to Latin America and Asia. I think we have to broaden our horizons to reflect that. And, hopefully, generosity will also emerge.”

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suzanne.muchnic@latimes.com