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The Gene Autry Museum
The Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition this morning expressed its outrage at the latest evidence of how the Autry “Cowboy” Museum is showing its contempt for taxpayers and disrespecting the Southwest Museum, the city’s first museum and the original home of an invaluable collection of Native American, Southwestern and Meso-American art and artifacts.
“The Autry must stop disrespecting taxpayers,” demanded coalition spokesperson Nicole Possert at a news conference outside the locked gate to the pedestrian tunnel leading to the Southwest Museum, located in the Highland Park-Mt. Washington neighborhoods.
“The Autry must give taxpayers our money’s worth. The Autry can do that by unlocking the doors of the Southwest Museum.”
After 10 years of being closed and the expenditure of about $10.5 million in federal and state tax dollars to save it, the Southwest Museum on Oct. 19 was half-heartedly reopened – but for only one day a week – by the Autry National Museum, the Southwest Museum’s “managing partner” since 2003.
“This re-opening is a farce,” said Ms. Possert. “The public spent $10.5 million supposedly to save the Southwest Museum and its collection. And this is what they get: A museum that’s locked six days a week? This is unacceptable. The Autry is stiffing taxpayers. The Autry is failing miserably to share the Southwest Museum’s wonderful collection with the taxpaying public. We demand that the Autry stop using our tax dollars to hide this tremendous art collection behind locked doors and in warehouses.
“Autry, make the collection widely to accessible the taxpaying public and to their children,” said Ms. Possert. “Let the collection be seen, not hidden. Unlock these doors.”
During the news conference, coalition members waved signs reading: “Autry: Free the Southwest Museum! Free the collection! Autry: Unlock these doors! Autry: Give taxpayers their museum!”
The coalition documented the little-known fact that the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the state of California spent approximately $10.5 million in taxpayer money to fix earthquake damage to the Southwest Museum and to protect the Southwest Museum’s priceless collection.
“The re-opening of the Southwest Museum, with this one, meager exhibit, is an insult to taxpayers – let me count the ways,” said Possert.
• “Insult One. The Autry has only opened the Southwest Museum to the public on Saturdays, one day a week, for six hours. The Southwest Museum should be open six days a week, like other museums.
• “Insult Two. The current exhibit is only a re-run of the same exhibit first shown at the Southwest Museum ten years ago, just before the Autry effectively shut the museum down for nearly a decade.
• “Insult Three. The Autry has opened only one gallery of the Southwest Museum for the display of the museum’s magnificent Native American art collection. The Autry should invest in opening more of the Southwest Museum’s gallery spaces.
“That’s three insults – in baseball, the Autry would be out,” said Ms. Possert. “For $10.5 million, the taxpayers ought to be getting a lot more for their money than this half-hearted, meager, one-day a week, one gallery, re-run exhibit.
“The only reason there’s any exhibit now at the Southwest Museum. The Autry is worried about having to explain how it spent our tax dollars.
“Amazingly the Autry thought this token exhibit just might appease the public and FEMA. But this exhibit fails to get that monkey off the Autry’s back. It actually calls attention to the fact that the Autry is not giving taxpayers their money’s worth. The Autry can fool the public some of the time, but it can’t fool us all the time.”
Where did all those tax dollars go? Much went to buy a warehouse in Burbank where it is now storing the lion’s share of the invaluable collection, out of reach of the public.
“The Autry should be spending more of its resources showing the Southwest Museum collection to the taxpayers, here at the Southwest Museum, not hoarding those treasures in a warehouse that’s completely inaccessible to the general public,” said Ms. Possert.
“This exhibit is also the latest evidence of the Autry’s policy of treating the Southwest Museum like a stepchild and trying to starve it to death,” said coalition leader Yvonne Sarceda.
“You keep a stepchild behind locked doors, you feed them a stingy diet, you hope someday they’ll just starve to death,” said Ms. Sarceda. “That’s exactly the way the Autry is treating the Southwest Museum. If this museum were a child, the authorities would jump right in and file criminal charges against the Autry for child abuse.”
The Autry’s refusal to treat the Southwest Museum as a functioning, vital museum has been a source of controversy for several years. The Autry and Southwest Museum merged in 2003. At that time, the Autry promised in writing to restore the Southwest Museum to its “original glory.” The Autry made that promise to the Southwest Museum’s board of directors, to Los Angeles city leaders and to the state Attorney General’s office.
Mr. Schwada may be contacted at john.schwada@gmail.com
