LACMA proposes a new model for museums. For a long time now, context has been an essential deliverable when you go to a museum. It’s how meaning gets constructed. Just what was so remarkable about the way Constable painted light, and how did it have an effect on the painters who came after?
The white cube gallery was modernism’s insistence that art speak for itself. But it was invented for audiences who already spoke the vocabulary. It assumed the context was already in the viewer’s head. The Geffen revives this for audiences who may not carry that context. Whether that is a brilliant adaptation, a beautiful concession, or just plain incoherence, is the open question of the building.