Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Faces Lawsuit over Whether It Truly Is a Private Museum at All

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the newly inaugurated institution spearheaded by collectors George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, may finally have opened to the press and founding members after $1 billion in costs and more than a decade of bureaucratic wrangling, but a new lawsuit alleges that the museum should’ve faced yet more hurdles during its construction.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that the museum is currently the subject of four lawsuits by contractors, one of whom is J.E. Snyder Electric, which worked on the museum as a subcontractor for Siemens Industry, Inc. and not directly for the Lucas Museum. Per the LA Times report, J.E. Snyder Electric’s lawsuit centers on whether the Lucas Museum really is a private museum at all. (ARTnews was not able to independently locate the documents for the lawsuit.)

The institution “actively promoted, contracted, and labeled the construction as a ‘private, non-profit development’ to bypass the rigorous administrative, registration, and bonding mandates of the California Public Contract Code, Civil Code, and Labor Code,” the lawsuit alleges.

It would be more appropriate to call the Lucas Museum a “public work,” the lawsuit goes on to claim: “In truth and in law, the Project is, and at all times was, a ‘public work,’ because it is a work of construction paid for in part out of public funds, which explicitly includes the transfer of public assets for less than fair market value and the lease of public land for nominal or below-market rent.”

By way of example, the lawsuit scrutinizes California’s land lease agreement with the museum. In 2017, after failed attempts by Lucas to realize his museum in Chicago and San Francisco, the Lucas Museum struck a deal with the state-run California Science Center, which is also located in Exposition Park, that would see the Lucas pay $30 a year for land usage for the next 99 years. This kind of agreement usually indicates that such an institution is a public one in California, the suit alleges. “We contend this rent concession makes the project a public work,” a lawyer for J.E. Snyder Electric told the Los Angeles Times.

The Lucas Museum rebutted the lawsuit to the Times, with an attorney stating: “The Lucas Museum is one of the largest private cultural gifts in American history: more than $1 billion, every penny of it private. No public funds. No public financing. No public debt. The claim that this is a ‘public work’ is a fiction, manufactured for leverage in a routine payment dispute by a subcontractor who has no direct contract with the Museum.”

According to the Lucas Museum’s lawyer, the institution was clear with the state of California that it was a private museum and agreed to provide public benefits during its construction. Those included the payment of $2.1 million to cover a lack of surface parking during construction, the upgrading of a nearby soccer park, and the maintenance of park space.

The lawsuit also contends that J.E. Snyder Electric has not received payment from Siemens for work done on the Lucas Museum. A Siemens spokesperson did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s request for comment.

The Lucas Museum focuses broadly on “narrative art,” which its founders define as any kind of art that tells a story. The offerings there include a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, an illustration of Pokémon, recreations of cave paintings in Lascaux, and sculptures of characters from Star Wars, the film franchise created by Lucas himself.

Critics have been polarized by the museum, with many in the film trade singing its praises while others in the art world have panned it. “In hindsight, the $1 billion price tag was perhaps the best indication that the Lucas is, ultimately, a vanity project,” wrote ARTnews Senior Editor Maximilíano Durón in his review of the museum.