The Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork has laid off 15 full-time workers, many from the group’s training and public programming workforce.
The layoffs quantity to 14% of the full-time workers, the museum mentioned Tuesday. A further seven part-time, on-call workers additionally had their roles eradicated, the museum mentioned.
Two individuals accustomed to museum operations who requested anonymity out of concern of retaliation described the scene as surprising and chaotic on Thursday morning, when workers have been summoned into morning conferences with human assets, knowledgeable that their jobs had been terminated and given till 2 p.m. to vacate the premises. Private belongings have been being despatched to their houses by courier, the sources mentioned.
The museum’s curator of movie applications, Bernardo Rondeau, was amongst these laid off. He was knowledgeable whereas he was on the Cannes movie pageant, and he posted on LinkedIn: “As of today, my role as Curator, Film Programs at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has been made redundant, effective immediately. I’m deeply grateful for the time I’ve spent there and for the many talented people I’ve had the privilege to work with.”
Rondeau, who beforehand served because the founding director of movie applications on the Academy Museum of Movement Photos, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from The Instances.
A consultant for the museum advised The Instances that the layoffs have been made “due to a necessary shift of the institution’s focus to ensure we open on time next year.”
“It is a tremendously difficult decision to reorganize roles and to eliminate staff, but the restructure will allow the museum’s teams to work more efficiently to bring the museum to life for the public,” the museum mentioned in an announcement.
The Lucas Museum was based by filmmaker George Lucas and his spouse, Mellody Hobson, who looked for a location in San Francisco and Chicago earlier than selecting Exposition Park in Los Angeles. The $1-billion museum broke floor adjoining to the Pure Historical past Museum of Los Angeles County in 2018. The challenge skilled its first substantial delay in 2022, as pandemic-related supply-chain points compelled the opening initially scheduled for 2023 to be pushed again to 2025. Earlier this yr its opening was once more pushed again, to 2026.
In February the museum’s director and chief govt, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, stepped down after 5 years in cost. The museum mentioned her position was being break up into two positions, with Lucas overseeing “content direction” and former twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Photos chairman and chief govt Jim Gianopulos taking on as interim chief govt. Jackson-Dumont left on April 1.
Jackson-Dumont has not spoken publicly about her departure and didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark late Monday.
Sources mentioned Lucas has been concerned in curatorial choices however didn’t appear engaged within the training and public programming that Jackson-Dumont had championed.
Previous to her arrival in L.A., Jackson-Dumont served because the chairwoman of training and public applications at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork. The San Francisco native additionally held training and public programming roles on the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Artwork and the Seattle Artwork Museum, the place she labored with Regan Professional, the Lucas Museum deputy director of public applications and social influence who was amongst these laid off final week, based on sources. Professional didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Instances.
“Education remains a central pillar of the Lucas Museum,” the museum mentioned in an announcement Tuesday morning. “One of the main reasons Los Angeles’s Exposition Park was chosen as the location for the museum was its proximity to other museums, USC, and more than 400 schools in a five-mile radius. The importance of education for the museum can be seen by the educational spaces baked into the museum’s design from the beginning, including 10 large classroom spaces, a vast library, and two state-of-the-art theaters. Educational program plans are still in development, and we look forward to sharing more closer to opening.”
