Word: museum
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Govan, 44, solves problems for a living. An East Coast art star who is best known for his work turning an abandoned factory into the Dia Art Foundation's showplace in Beacon, N.Y., in 2003, he was hired 22 months ago to bring his magic to LACMA, a museum that even its most prominent backer, collector Eli Broad, calls "very tired...
...open at LACMA in February is a new, $56 million, Renzo Piano-designed home for Broad's contemporary art collection. The Broad Contemporary Art Museum, which has 60,000 sq. ft. (18,200 sq m) of exhibition space, is key to a three-part transformation now under way to reconfigure and expand LACMA'S 20-acre (8 hectare) campus on Wilshire Boulevard and, it is hoped, revitalize its collections?and its reputation...
...LACMA will integrate a cluster of disparate buildings, linking them with walkways, plazas and gardens. Piano's design was in place before Govan's arrival, but he has already convinced the architect to rethink the museum's new entrance and brought in the sort of contemporary artists who helped put his Dia:Beacon on the international map. Chris Burden is readying more than 200 historic lampposts, and Robert Irwin is curating a garden of palm trees. If all goes according to plan, expect a 161-ft. (49 m) crane dangling a 70-ft. (21.3 m) train replica courtesy of Jeff...
...deceiving, the office says, and the same could be said of its occupant. Don't be misled by the movie-star looks, pilot's license and glamorous wife, LVMH communications executive Katherine Ross. "This is a substantive guy," says architect Frank Gehry, who worked with then Guggenheim museum deputy director Govan on the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. "He's got ideas, and he works hard to make sure they get implemented...
Govan has already implemented plenty of ideas at LACMA. The museum had been without an art expert at its helm much of the past 15 years, and Broad ticks off the tasks Govan took on. "We had to re-energize the staff, rebuild our board of trustees and make an architectural mess a more coherent campus," says Broad. "And we had to raise a lot of money to pay for all this. Michael was the ideal leader to make all that happen...