“That’s the one. That’s the one. Uno. The one.”
It was Spike Lee, with a spark of excitement, pointing to Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With,” the 1964 painting depicting Ruby Bridges being escorted to a newly integrated New Orleans school, one of the works inside the recently completed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.
It was around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, and Lee had finally gotten a chance to look around. Moments earlier, a guest had stopped him for a photo. “You’re just a legend,” she told the filmmaker before asking his favorite part of the museum.
“I haven’t seen it yet,” Lee replied.
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He wasn’t alone. The art had competition. Opening night at the long-awaited museum was as much about the scene — and conversations unfolding between the galleries — as it was about what hung inside.
It was a rare mix of politicians, filmmakers, artists, musicians, actors, philanthropists and business leaders, including Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Kim Kardashian, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Samuel L. Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry, Justin Trudeau, Cynthia Erivo, Emma Watson, Doja Cat and Janelle Monáe, alongside L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Mayor Eric Garcetti, Bob Iger, Ted Sarandos, Nicole Avant, Rick Caruso, JR and Jeff Koons.
George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, who cofounded the museum, have spent years bringing the project to fruition.
Devoted to narrative art and storytelling through images, the collection spans illustration, painting, comics, photography and cinema, from Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish to manga and “Star Wars” memorabilia. Inside the 300,000-square-foot building are more than 1,300 works on view at opening, drawn from the museum’s permanent collection — built largely from Lucas’ decades of collecting — as well as loans from other institutions and private collections. It opens to the public Tuesday.
Earlier in the evening, as guests made their way inside, Coppola was taking in the space as a whole. “I’m dying to see it. I want to see the building.”
Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD, the structure’s low, curving form has been widely compared to a spacecraft, a fitting association, of course, for the creator of “Star Wars.”
Jackson, meanwhile, had already seen it in a very different state. “I’ve been in it a couple time. I was in it when it was a construction site.”
Winfrey had one destination in mind. “I’m excited to see the Rockwells,” she said.
For del Toro, the museum’s broad approach to storytelling reflected his own. Asked what had shaped his perspective, he said: “There’s so many, and you know, each of them stands in its own right. I can think of a painting by Thomas Cole that affected me, or I can think of a beautiful [J. M. W.] Turner affecting me, and I can think of a neorealist film affecting me, or a sci-fi piece of film. Each of them — because art is not a single thing, even if it’s a single medium, they affect you. And we are made of many notes, and each musical note is affected by a similar one.”
Garcetti arrived with a limited-edition Star Wars St. Ali coffee set in hand. “I’m giving this to George,” he said. “What do you get billionaires that open a museum?”
Inside, the formal program began with the gospel choir Voices of Fire, joined by Jon Batiste on piano and an additional 75 singers, their voices filling the ground floor. Keke Palmer and Miranda Kerr, there with husband Evan Spiegel, were among those capturing the performance on iPhones.
Onstage, Lucas and Hobson were joined by JR, Spielberg and Williams, del Toro, Queen Latifah, Julie Bell, Greta Gerwig and Lewis Hamilton.
“We are witnessing history,” Latifah said. “Paris has the Louvre, New York has the Met. Now L.A. has the Lucas. We have the Lucas.”
Lucas returned to the idea that art is rooted in personal response.
“Art is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “If it is emotional to you, then it’s art.…I believe it, wholeheartedly, that you get to decide what art is.”
Hobson addressed criticism of the project. “The critics say a museum of narrative art is too much like a popcorn movie and not enough like an art film,” she said. “Well we like popcorn movies.“
For Hobson, the personal connection to the museum extended to what she wore: a white beaded Ashi look whose lines showcased the architecture of the building.
“I’m marrying a building,” she laughed, ahead of her speech. “I’m going to have this building in my life for the rest of my life, so I decided I was gonna wear white.”
By about 7:50 p.m., the remarks were ending and Hobson sent the crowd off to explore.
“I’ll meet you on the roof at 9,” she said. “There’s going to be something pretty epic at 9 o’clock.”
Guests began making their way to the fourth-floor galleries, where conversations continued as the crowd dispersed through the museum. Jack Black was among those pausing over the art, while Cynthia Erivo, Helen Hunt, Emma Watson, Doja Cat and Janelle Monáe moved through the galleries nearby. Photographers circulated, occasionally stepping into conversations to ask for a picture.
On the fifth floor, lounge seating, bars, food stations and the museum’s Skywalker Grill restaurant gave guests a place to sit and regroup. By 9 p.m., many had gathered on the open-air terrace.
A violin performance came first, followed by Winfrey and Jackson introducing a “sky story,” a gift from Nova Sky Stories that transformed imagery from the museum’s collection into a drone show overhead, including the “Cave of Altamira,” N.C. Wyeth’s “The Storybook,” Bell’s “The Huntress,” Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon,” the Millennium Falcon and Maxfield Parrish’s “Ecstasy.”
“Tell everyone you know what you’ve seen tonight,” Hobson said afterward.
For those “with gas left in the tank,” she added, there was still another performance to come — the Black Eyed Peas — and for the “late, late, late crowd,” a lineup of DJs.
Soon, the dance floor filled, with Doja Cat among those going hardest. Eventually, guests began making their way out, Caruso among them.
On the elevator ride down, he put it plainly.
“What a great event, huh?”
