How LACMA Is Centering Curation Around Cross-Cultural Exchange

Conscious uncoupling from historically prevalent curatorial approaches has increased as institutions recognize their inherent biases. LACMA is not alone in looking for alternative ways to frame its collection. The Colby College Museum of Art, for example, is organizing its upcoming exhibition, Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas, along new lines. The show will bring together around 50 works by 40 contemporary artists across two floors: one organized by geography and one by theme. It acknowledges that oceanic thinking is a set of possibilities for how to connect and contextualize art across land and sea.

What makes LACMA’s ocean-centric approach especially consequential is its scale. The museum’s Local Access program partners with seven West Coast institutions to distribute works from its permanent collection to spaces across Southern California and beyond. These include the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, the Riverside Art Museum, and the Ontario Museum of History & Art. Objects that do not make it into the David Geffen Galleries can be routed to these partners instead of being held in storage to ensure the collection remains accessible across a broad geographic range.

This distribution model is part of a larger national enterprise known as the Art Bridges Cohort Program, a collection-sharing initiative that encourages museums to work together over a period of four to six years to expand the accessibility of their holdings. It is designed to eliminate the logistical bottlenecks that have historically kept pieces locked in institutional silos and give regional museums the resources to present exhibitions that meaningfully engage local audiences.

Such shifts in how collections are organized intellectually and physically distributed reflects a growing recognition that museums serve as connectors rather than custodians. LACMA’s inaugural show at the David Geffen Galleries and collection-sharing efforts make it clear that access is as valuable as connoisseurship when it comes to art.