Having won a measure of financial and political support at home for their plan to remake the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan and Peter Zumthor have taken their show on the road — to Italy.
Govan, LACMA's director and chief executive since 2006, and Zumthor, the Swiss architect who has designed two remarkable art museums in Europe but never built in the United States, met up at Venice's Architecture Biennale on Thursday to present an oversize model of the new wing they hope will be completed by 2023.
"It's the right moment to show it to the professional community because the paradigm is there," Zumthor told me as the all-black model, showing a slice of the wing that will rise just east of the Chris Burden installation "Urban Light," towered over him.
From here on, he added, "It is only going to be small alterations."
The model was displayed inside the Arsenale, the old shipbuilding yards that contain a major section of the Biennale, which holds its preview days through Friday. Along with a few small site plans and architectural drawings under glass, it was accompanied by a textile artwork by Christina Kim made up of sheets of fabric in a range of colors (blues, oranges and yellows) hanging on hooks in two curving rows, as if making up the world's most glamorous dry cleaning shop. The music, almost too soft to hear, was by the late artist Walter De Maria — his "Ocean Music" sound piece of 1968.
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