The Museum of Latin American Art Re-opens, with great hope for its architecture and art
By Theo Douglas

It’s about a month before the June 9 grand re-opening of Dr. Robert Gumbiner’s Museum of Latin American Art—following a $10 million expansion that has transformed its entrance into what looks like a set of giant building blocks—and we’re touring the place with Gumbiner and Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster. It’s the Bob and Bob Show—your hosts, two deities whose names reduce to the same syllable, both of whom are assiduously courted at every sculpture, every painting, every mop bucket (finishing touches).

“Would you mind talking in front of this piece? Face this piece if you would, sir?” wheedles the museum photog, a slender woman in a white Izod polo. Gumbiner, impeccably composed in a exquisitely-pressed tan suit and brown oxfords, turns on his cane, giving not a sign. “Could you turn this way so we can get your profile, sir?” the photog asks Foster.

“I’ve been in meetings like this,” jokes the mayor, a former electric company executive. Actually, this is a meeting like this. It’s the meeting behind the meeting, the set-up for the grand court press now underway. But it’s nonetheless fascinating at our tour’s end to have an inside look at Foster—who will be out of the country when MoLAA officially reopens—filming two takes of a televised greeting for dignitaries and sponsors.

“ . . . you are at what will be the landmark in the City of Long Beach for art and culture,” Foster says at one point; he also films a conversation with Gumbiner in the lobby. “This will be a lasting legacy not only for art, but for the City of Long Beach.” Or so they hope.

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As we watch the mayor and the founder go down on film, museum director Gregorio Luke finds a blank page in my notebook and draws a diagonal line on it, representing the front of the building, which faces southwest toward the Port of Long Beach.
“If we had done it the traditional way, it wouldn’t have been dramatic at all,” he says. “This shows you the modern direction of Latin America.” So, Latin America is a coupla giant square arches, a square building whose corner juts out like the prow of a ship, and a blue smokestack-y thing with mirrored windows—all set in a landscape of gray rock and agave cacti? Totally.

MoLAA’s expansion, from 30,000 to 55,000 square feet, is courtesy of Manuel Rosen, whose architectural career dates to 1953 Mexico City, and Long Beach-based architect Chris Brown—but, one suspects, mostly Rosen. The Mexican architect—chosen for his Latin American design sense, Luke says—shows tiny renderings of the MoLAA project on his American projects webpage; there’s also a slightly out-of-focus photo of a ’70s or ’80s modern house he did in La Jolla, and a map of dormitories he designed for the University of California San Diego.

His best—and most unabashedly futuristic—work seems to come from other countries, especially Spain, where he sketched a spacey cylindrical headquarters for a Barcelona soccer club; and Mexico, where his Tijuana Cultural Center features a theater/biosphere in a ball-shaped structure reminiscent of the famous round Perisphere—part of the Theme Center at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

With its square arches—envisioned as a bridge to the Americas—austere landscaping (the agaves, everyone assured me, will be twice as big—eventually) and disconnected, alien elements, MoLAA’s new complex is awe-inspiring. But somehow, its futurism—even softened by a waterfall and splashes of deep blue and a pinkish maroon paint—isn’t nearly as inviting as the Theme Center seemed 68 years ago. (But maybe that’s because we weren’t there and hadn’t seen that future yet. Also? It had the World’s Longest Escalator. Just saying.) District contributor Miles Clements thinks MoLAA’s blue cylinder, which houses a lounge on one level and a board room on another, looks suspiciously like something he’s seen on one of the nearby oil islands—which, with their faux cityscapes, are equally contrived.

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Some of this is just exercise: art, however beautiful—and sometimes because of that beauty—is one of our culture’s ultimate contrivances, up there with the electronic voting machine. We love the oil islands now. They seem retro and fun—like old Vegas. And since when is a museum itself not supposed to be a work of art? In 30 years, MoLAA may really be Long Beach’s triumph—the place that finally put this place over. Or not.

MUSEUM OF LATIN AMERICAN ART 628 ALAMITOS AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.437.1689 | MOLAA.ORG | OPEN TUES-FRI 11:30AM-7PM | SAT 11AM-7PM | SUN 11 AM-6 PM | $3-5 | RE-OPENS JUNE 9