You can't spell LACMA without a '$'

(And you won't see this post on the LACMA web page devoted to showing-off how many people have paid attention to its existence...)

As I walked through LACMA's superb Magritte-and-friends show I noticed something odd. No, it wasn't the clever, sublime juxtaposition of Koons, Magritte and Weiner (more on the show in the weeks ahead), it was something about the people in the galleries themselves. I realized that I was the only person there under 50 years old. It was as if the exhibit and I had accidentally stumbled into a Del Webb community clubhouse. It didn't take me long to realize why I was surrounded by middle-aged (and up), affluence: On weekends, LACMA charges a ridiculous $22 to see the show. That's more than MoMA's ridiculous, tourist-soaking fee. But at least at MoMA kids 16 and under and many college students are free. The most a student pays at MoMA is $12.At LACMA's Magritte show students get a discount -- to $19. (And LACMA keeps the exhibition price a secret -- it isn't mentioned here.)

Now, I'm hesitant to pop off about LACMA again. For a writer there's real risk to criticizing an institution too regularly. And as we all know by now: For several years LACMA has distinguished itself with short-sighted thinking, An$chutz-driven decision-making, strange exhibition programming, and with curators who shrug off the destruction of art by pointing out that they have photographs of that which they destroy. I've complained about all of it. So I thought about keeping this one under my hat. But...

It's hard to imagine how LACMA could be doing a better job of limiting its future audiences than by boneheadedly charging $19-22 for a show. That pretty much guarantees that the only people under 35 who are going to see Magritte-and-pals are Ron Burkle's kids and David Geffen's cabana boys.

So I have two questions for LACMA's two groups of overseers, its trustees and the L.A. County supervisors. How is this kind of numbnuttery acceptable to you? Have you noticed that in one of the most diverse places in America, your exhibition audience is 95%-plus white? How are you going to make sure that your museum has an audience in ten or twenty years when you're working so hard to limit it now?

This is failure No. 1 of LACMA's Michael Govan era. Perhaps Govan's too busy spending time in NYC's soak-the-visitors museum culture to realize that a $22 fee is nuts.