Lucas Museum layoffs hit 14% of its full-time staff, including education team

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has laid disconnected 15 full-time employees, galore from the organization’s acquisition and nationalist programming team.

The layoffs magnitude to 14% of the full-time staff, the depository said Tuesday. An further 7 part-time, on-call employees besides had their roles eliminated, the depository said.

Two radical acquainted with depository operations who requested anonymity retired of fearfulness of retaliation described the country arsenic shocking and chaotic connected Thursday morning, erstwhile employees were summoned into greeting meetings with quality resources, informed that their jobs had been terminated and fixed until 2 p.m. to vacate the premises. Personal belongings were being sent to their homes by courier, the sources said.

The museum’s curator of movie programs, Bernardo Rondeau, was among those laid off. He was informed portion helium was astatine the Cannes movie festival, and helium posted connected LinkedIn: “As of today, my relation arsenic Curator, Film Programs astatine the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has been made redundant, effectual immediately. I’m profoundly grateful for the clip I’ve spent determination and for the galore talented radical I’ve had the privilege to enactment with.”

Rondeau, who antecedently served arsenic the founding manager of movie programs astatine the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, did not instantly respond to a petition for remark from The Times.

A typical for the depository told The Times that the layoffs were made “due to a indispensable displacement of the institution’s absorption to guarantee we unfastened connected clip adjacent year.”

“It is simply a tremendously hard determination to reorganize roles and to destruct staff, but the restructure volition let the museum’s teams to enactment much efficiently to bring the depository to beingness for the public,” the depository said successful a statement.

The Lucas Museum was founded by filmmaker George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, who searched for a determination successful San Francisco and Chicago earlier choosing Exposition Park successful Los Angeles. The $1-billion depository broke crushed adjacent to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County successful 2018. The task experienced its archetypal important hold successful 2022, arsenic pandemic-related supply-chain issues forced the opening primitively scheduled for 2023 to beryllium pushed backmost to 2025. Earlier this twelvemonth its opening was again pushed back, to 2026.

In February the museum’s manager and main executive, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, stepped down aft 5 years successful charge. The depository said her relation was being divided into 2 positions, with Lucas overseeing “content direction” and erstwhile 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures president and main enforcement Jim Gianopulos taking implicit arsenic interim main executive. Jackson-Dumont near connected April 1.

Jackson-Dumont has not spoken publically astir her departure and did not instantly respond to requests for remark precocious Monday.

Sources said Lucas has been progressive successful curatorial decisions but did not look engaged successful the acquisition and nationalist programming that Jackson-Dumont had championed.

Prior to her accomplishment successful L.A., Jackson-Dumont served arsenic the chairwoman of acquisition and nationalist programs astatine New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The San Francisco autochthonal besides held acquisition and nationalist programming roles astatine the Studio Museum successful Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Seattle Art Museum, wherever she worked with Regan Pro, the Lucas Museum lawman manager of nationalist programs and societal interaction who was among those laid disconnected past week, according to sources. Pro did not respond to a petition for remark from The Times.

“Education remains a cardinal pillar of the Lucas Museum,” the depository said successful a connection Tuesday morning. “One of the main reasons Los Angeles’s Exposition Park was chosen arsenic the determination for the depository was its proximity to different museums, USC, and much than 400 schools successful a five-mile radius. The value of acquisition for the depository tin beryllium seen by the acquisition spaces baked into the museum’s plan from the beginning, including 10 ample schoolroom spaces, a immense library, and 2 state-of-the-art theaters. Educational programme plans are inactive successful development, and we look guardant to sharing much person to opening.”