Cowboys vs. Indians?

Save The Southwest Museum

Gene Autry's Legacy and
an Indian Museum Merge (and Collide)
By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES, June 22 — When one of the country's premier collections of American Indian artifacts joined forces three years ago with the collectibles of the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, the move was officially billed as a merger of equals.

This being Hollywood, however, the storyline was reduced to something simpler: the cowboys were once again battling the Indians.

Guess which side won.

Instead of celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding next year, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian will lock its doors here on June 30. Over the next three years, the 240,000 objects in its collection, many of which have not been out of storage for decades, will be cleaned, cataloged and prepared for a move to a proposed new building next to Autry's Museum of the American West, in Griffith Park.

That is where the Autry National Center, as the merged museum complexes are now known, will celebrate another 100th anniversary next year: the Gene Autry Centennial, a birthday exhibition that, according to the museum, will explore "the Singing Cowboy's influence on myth and history in the American West."

For many residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the Southwest Museum, the museum's plans to move its collection smack of a bait-and-switch. From the time the merger was first discussed in 2001, both sides stressed that the Southwest Museum — whose identity is embedded in the landmark white adobe building that towers over the Arroyo Seco northeast of downtown — would remain separate and apart from the Autry.

"I grew up visiting the museum," said Ed P. Reyes, a Los Angeles city councilman whose district contains part of the Southwest Museum's grounds. "I don't want us to lose a cultural landmark that has had a tremendous impact on our community in terms of education and culture. I was always under the impression that they were not going to close it down."

Autry officials say there is no alternative. "We looked for a way to resurrect this campus as a museum," John L. Gray, the president and chief executive of the Autry National Center, said of the Southwest's location. "We couldn't figure out a way to make it work."

The dispute illustrates a continuing issue in the museum world. When cash-poor but collection-rich institutions are forced into partnerships with their opposites, often no one is left happy.

The Autry museum, opened in 1988 by the Autry family, was backed by a large fortune but had a collection that tended toward movie memorabilia and less distinguished Western paintings.

The Southwest, by contrast, suffered from a small endowment and declines in membership and visitors. But since its founding by Charles Lummis, an explorer and collector, it had built an extensive collection of Indian artifacts, including 13,500 Indian baskets, perhaps the largest such holding in existence, as well as thousands of objects, ranging from the sacred — including human remains — to the mundane.

Most of that collection is now being put into storage as the Southwest strives to deal with long-festering problems. Severe damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which caused the partial separation of the Southwest's tower from the main building, has never been repaired. Heavy rains last year resulted in extensive leaks, with water pouring into some of the museum's cramped storage spaces and damaging some displays. Insect infestations have threatened some artifacts, Southwest curators say.

To remedy the problems, all of the building's exhibition space must be given over to storage and restoration work, Autry officials say. They expect the work to take three years.

Mr. Gray stressed that the historic Southwest site, built by Mr. Lummis in 1914, was not being abandoned. A small, rotating exhibition featuring artifacts from the museum's collection is likely to be put in place once the conservation work is finished. But he said that the location must add other uses, both educational and commercial, to remain viable.

During the restoration, the building's gift shop and a lobby display about the project will be open on weekends. No artifacts from the collection will be on display, although tours of the conservation work will be available to museum members, and the museum's scholarly library will remain open by appointment.

Some neighborhood leaders say that plans to transfer the collection are unacceptable. "It needs some work, but everything is in place for the museum to be successful where it is," said Nicole Possert, co-chairwoman of the Friends of the Southwest Museum coalition, which characterizes itself as an IMBY group — one that wants new development "in my back yard."

"Look at the Disney Concert Hall," Ms. Possert said. "It changed how people viewed downtown and the communities near it. We're open to expansion of the Southwest Museum, as long as it is creatively done and looks good. We would trade that off in return for being able to have a real destination here."

Not everyone is opposed to the Autry's plans to move. Kathleen Whitaker, a former chief curator at the Southwest Museum who is now director of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, N.M., applauds the Autry's efforts.

"For those of us who grew up in Los Angeles, it's very disappointing that this very historic institution has suffered so much," Dr. Whitaker said. "But the Autry has in essence rescued a collection of national importance. The people in the neighborhood and the city of Los Angeles haven't offered any real viable support for keeping the museum open."

To build the new museum that it hopes will house the Southwest collection, the Autry National Center must get city approval to expand.

Councilman José Huizar, whose district includes the Southwest's main building, noted that the city had made accommodations to serve the Southwest Museum at its current site. For example, the city built a stop on the Gold Line light-rail service at the museum, partly because the hilltop site lacks enough parking.

"You don't abandon a site like this just because of parking issues," Mr. Huizar said.

The city has organized a series of public hearings on the museum's future. While Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said during his election campaign last year that he wanted the Southwest to stay where it is, more recently he has not sided either way. The mayor's press office did not return four phone calls seeking comment on the issue.

Mr. Gray, a former banker who, with his cropped hair, rimless glasses and white shirt, could have played an Old West banker in one of Autry's cowboy films, admits that while he is a museum executive, he is not a curator or an expert on American Indian cultures.

"I'm a total dilettante," he said. "But when we came in, the museum didn't have enough money to pay its bills. It didn't have security guards. It didn't have conservators. It never had the public support that the collection warranted."