The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has laid off 15 full-time employees due to a needed shift in focus to ensure the institution opens as planned in 2026.
Per a report in the Los Angeles Times, the layoffs amount to 14 percent of the museum’s full-time staff. An additional seven part-time, on-call employees were also laid off.
A spokesperson for the museum told the Los Angeles Times that the job cuts were made “due to a necessary shift of the institution’s focus to ensure we open on time next year”.
It said: “It is a tremendously difficult decision to reorganize roles and to eliminate staff, but the restructure will allow the museum’s teams to work more efficiently to bring the museum to life for the public.”
The museum’s curator of film programmes, Bernardo Rondeau, was among those laid off.
He posted on LinkedIn last week: “As of today, my role as curator, film programs at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has been made redundant, effective immediately.
“I’m deeply grateful for the time I’ve spent there and for the many talented people I’ve had the privilege to work with.”
Lucas Museum opening pushed back to 2026
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art said the full-time job cuts have mostly affected its education and public programming team.
It said in a statement: “Education remains a central pillar of the Lucas Museum. One of the main reasons Los Angeles’s Exposition Park was chosen as the location for the museum was its proximity to other museums, USC, and more than 400 schools in a five-mile radius.
“The importance of education for the museum can be seen by the educational spaces baked into the museum’s design from the beginning, including 10 large classroom spaces, a vast library, and two state-of-the-art theaters. Educational program plans are still in development, and we look forward to sharing more closer to opening.”
The museum, co-founded by George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, has faced several delays, with the opening originally scheduled for 2023 but now pushed back to 2026.
Earlier this year, the museum’s director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont stepped down after five years in the role.
Other US museums to announce layoffs this year include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Brooklyn Museum in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Images courtesy of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
