Ace Museum

This museum hasn’t updated it’s exhibition schedule in what seems like years. The dates are wonky and open/​close dates pass and how without so much as a whisper. I don’t think they even have a real staff???

As you can see from Christine A’s earlier Unilocal review, this place is run by the kind of people who boldly promise things, like the museum’s completion, which do not materialize. That’s probably for the best.
Their landmark statue of Mao atop Lenin’s head is an eyesore: glitzy, banal and visually less interesting or attractive than the auto dealership that preceded the Ace Museum’s tenancy in this location.
Be sure to take a look at the «statement» by the museum at the bottom of this page. It reads like a B– on someone’s middle-​school English homework.
Los Angeles, Planet Earth and existence all deserve better.

After passing the shiny Lenin head a few times, we finally stopped by yesterday to see what it was all about.
Around the back, through a raised rear hatch, was a man at a table with a model to the right of him. He greeted us, welcoming us to all there was of the Ace Museum thus far (which was pretty much the metal frames for the walls and the concrete floors). «This is all we’ve got right now,» he said, and assured that the museum would be fully open in the fall.
He took us through the foam board model they had, telling us how the three floors of galleries there would be and how one room was to be used for parties and fashion shows. The owner runs the Ace Gallery on Wilshire and has been collecting since the ‘60s.
The man asked us how we found out about the museum, and we mentioned the Lenin out front. The piece, entitled «Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head» by the Gao Brothers, features a Kewpie doll version of their trademark gender-​swapped, Mao caricature with a balancing pole standing on the giant, chrome Lenin bust. I’m not entirely sure what the message is more than poking at Mao Zedong, but it was enough for us to get out and take pictures like it was a roadside attraction.
The «project room» (the place I described above) is only open 1 – 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. It’s still worth dropping by to visit the Lenin statue, at least, until the exhibit space opens in November.