Work record / Development / LACMA

LACMA: a volunteer owner-side seat, and one interactive sculpture

For two years I worked for LACMA as an unpaid owner-side lead on campus art, and I kept it unpaid on purpose. In the middle of that term, Tellus Build bid, fabricated and installed an artist's interactive sculpture.

The seat

From May 2016 to May 2018 I was a volunteer owner-side lead on art installations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Separately, I was the general contractor on the Magic Carpet/Home sculpture through Tellus Build, which bid, fabricated and installed it.

What I was brought in to decide

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art stages art installations all over a working public campus. Each installation involves three parties with different masters and no common chain of command. The artist answers to the vision. The fabricator answers to the budget. The museum's facilities department answers to the building and to the public moving through it. A museum has no way of quietly fixing a mistake. When a piece is damaged or an opening is missed, everyone sees it.

I held a standing owner-side lead seat on those installations for two years, May 2016 to May 2018, unpaid. Partway through, Tellus Build bid, fabricated and installed one of them. It was María Elena González's interactive sculpture Magic Carpet/Home, made for the exhibition Home, So Different, So Appealing.

What we did

• Before I touched a schedule I mapped the three parties and wrote down who decides what. The artist decides the vision. The fabricator decides the fabrication budget. Facilities decides on the building and its loads. The seat, meaning me, decides the schedule against the opening, any dispute between the parties, and the sign-off on public safety and the accessible path.
• In March 2017 we bid the sculpture at a normal rate and built exactly what was drawn, working to the museum's hours and site rules.
• I treated the choreography around the build as the real deliverable. That meant the restricted hours, the discipline on site, and sequencing around the other crews on campus.
• I held the one call the seat answers for. Nothing opens until facilities has walked the piece against a checklist and signed.
• I reviewed bids and change orders on roughly fifteen other campus installations. I did it unsupervised, with nobody from the museum in the room. I also kept the seat unpaid on purpose, because a fee out of any one of the three budgets would have ended its independence.
• The seat ended when its term did, in May 2018.

Results

• Magic Carpet/Home went in during June 2017, for Home, So Different, So Appealing.
• CODAworx chose it for its Interactive Art issue. The August 2017 announcement carried a release with my statement, which credited the artist's vision and the museum's co-curators.
• For the whole term I coordinated roughly fifteen other campus installations. We added no headcount and opened no paid line.
• I left behind a written charter for the seat: who has decision rights, a walkthrough gate that comes before any opening, an independent engineer to call in if two estimates conflict, and the single condition on pay that keeps the seat sound.

The lesson

Hold the standing seat unpaid on purpose. A fee from any one of the three parties would have ended the authority the job needed.

Public record

• PRWeb: Tellus Design + Build constructs sculpture for new exhibition at LACMA (June 2017)
• PRWeb: Tellus Build project selected for CODAworx Interactive Art issue (August 2017)

Questions about LACMA, answered

Firm record

Common Ground keeps its own account of this engagement: LACMA on the Common Ground wiki.

Back to all projects