The Exhibition Categories

EXHIBITION CATEGORIES

The following represents an initial categorization of the types of subject matter exhibitions that The LA Experience might create. These examples cover a wide variety of LA-centric storytelling and can serve as both a brainstorming aid and some ‘night stars’ to guide the creators.

HISTORY

Comps: King Tut: The Exhibition, National WWII Museum

LA can seem like it sprung up overnight, but there are many fascinating and under-explored periods that The LA Experience could bring to life with immersive stories from a purely historical perspective, including: 

  • The robust Tongva community that existed prior to the city’s founding; 

  • The Spanish, Mexican and American explorers and conquests the Mexican War of Independence and the Mexican Republic; The Conquest of California in the Mexican-American War;

  • T the world-changing arrival of the rRailroad;

  • T the “selling of the dream” and the rapid expansion of the City

  • Muholland and the bringing of water to the Southland

  • The L.A. harbors: from Phineas Banning to the the shipyards of WWII  to the supertankers of todayand the explosion of West Coast ports

  •  and manufacturingI;impactful characters and dreamers

  • The aviation pioneers   the causes and outcomes of the Watts Riots; etc.

History could also emerge in a less chronological fashion with more thematically oriented experiences: i.e. the changing, ever-fluctuating pronunciation of the city’s names; 

  • The stories of the Olympics the city has hosted

  • The creation and expansion of its freewaysthe Interstate System and their  its effects on the city’s history and communities

  • The birth of California Car Culture and the massive cultural movements that went alongside it

  • The immigrant experiences

  • Impactful characters and dreamers


CULTURE(S)

Comps: Immersive Van Gogh, Carne y Arena

Los Angeles is not one culture. It’s hundreds. And these subcultures should be celebrated, whether they stem from our diverse ethnic backgrounds (the Tongva/Gabrieleño heritage, Chicano art and activism, and our vibrant AAPI food scene. all leap to mind as obvious subjects), our love of activity-based subcultures (skateboarding, surfing, car racingmotorcycles, and car customizing)street style all could translate to exhibitions with wide appeal and built in hardcore fan bases), our vibrant and under-recognized local art scene, our place as the movie and music capital, our role as a mecca and safe haven for qQueer and non-binary communities (Drag: The Exhibition, anyone?) and the thousand other micro-communities that make LA so special.

Any long-term activations around culture could consider using an use the LA River as an organizing principle - celebrating the incredibly diverse neighborhoods and industries that are connected by this revitalized waterway.

Three of the most popular and historic sub-cultures to be mined for exhibitions are sports, music and movies/TV.

SPORTS  

Comps: The Messi Experience, The F1 Exhibition, College Football Hall of Fame

LA is a sports town without rival and the opportunities for celebrating this and taking fans inside the action are nearly endless. 

This could take a number of different forms: Specific subjects - like a history of LA’s three different Olympics, maybe actively focused on the Colosseum; Individual team eras - like the Showtime era Lakers; Specific years - ‘like 72 when the Lakers and Bruins both won championships and USC football went 12-0 under John McKay, or ‘88 when the Lakers and Dodgers both won Championships and Gretzky came to the Kings; or individual athletes or coaches - Magic, Kobe, Walton, Otani, Marcus Allen


MUSIC  

Comps: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Cash Museum

Almost as much as movies, music is integral to the 20th Century Story of Los Angeles. Blockbuster exhibitions could focus on LA and SoCal music movements: the Laurel Canyon Sound; The Bakersfield Country Explosion; The Wattstax Festival and the merging of California funk and Memphis Soul; West Coast Rap (NWA, Snoop, Tupac); West Coast Alternative/Punk/Ska (Chili Peppers, Sublime, Weezer, Beck, No Doubt). 


Or they could center on individual bands or artists whose roots are inseparable from LA (preferably bands that are either retired or deceased to make this a true national/international draw): The Doors, The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Rage Against the Machine, Van Halen, Motley Crue, Tupac, The Go-Go’s.

MOVIES/TV

Comps: Jurassic World: The Exhibition, Harry Potter: The Exhibition

To avoid conflicting with the Academy Museum, these fan-centric, potentially high revenue experiences can avoid individual filmmaker retrospectives and instead highlight individual films or movements in filmmaking, always with a focus on blockbuster, crowd-pleasing films that star LA to drive attention and ticket sales.[Let’s discuss. Rights issues are paramount]

 For individual films, think Back to the Future, Die Hard, Speed, Terminator 2, Clueless, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 

These could also be arranged more thematically, covering LA and California-centric genres like Neo Noir (The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, Heat, Pulp Fiction, Collateral, Mulholland Drive, Big Lebowski, Falling Down), Science Fiction (Escape from LA, Repo Man, Independence Day, Blade Runner), or Love Letters to LA (LA Story, La La Land, The Player, Magnolia, Shampoo, Fast Times at Ridgemont High).

FOOD


ENVIRONMENT

Sited next to the L.A RIver and the Taylor Yard park, The LA Experience would naturally suggest a range of stories about the Southern California environment.  It can range from thoughtful experiences about current climate change effects (wildfires, beach erosion, flooding)  to imaginary onesT(hough discussions of climate change can certainly enter into our programming, this doesn’t need to be about environmental issues (though experiences imagining Los Angeles After Humans or Underwater) could be both mind-opening and scary-fun). There also should be exhibits on the They can simply focus about the geological features that make Los Angeles unique, like . Experiences could cover easily accessible and engaging pop-science topics like: The San Andreas Fault; The Pacific Ocean; The Mojave Desert; Time Traveling Back to the era of saber tooth tigers, woolly mammoths and the Tar Pits; Mulholland and the Water Wars; and of course the LA River itself (an excellent subject for an initial installation that can actually span many of these domain areas).