George Lucas and Mellody Hobson built a $1 billion museum in Exposition Park that puts Star Wars props in the same building as Frida Kahlo paintings. Not everyone thinks that's a good idea.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public Sept. 22 with a collection of more than 40,000 works organized around a single principle: storytelling. Illustration, comics, manga and commercial art share 100,000 square feet of gallery space with artists like Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Ernie Barnes and Grandma Moses. The Star Wars display occupies just 7% of the exhibition space, according to CEO Tracey Bates.

That curatorial bet has split LA's art world, the Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 9.

Former LA Times art critic Christopher Knight said the approach is misguided. "Mass culture and art culture are different in lots of ways, but the Lucas [Museum] seems determined to collapse those distinctions," Knight told the Times. He argued that much of the imagery the museum collects belongs to a media landscape that no longer exists.

Supporters counter that the museum is long overdue. Michael Govan, CEO of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and a Lucas Museum board member, told the Times the institution's approach carries real power because it breaks from tradition. Mark Hilbert, founder of the Hilbert Museum of California Art, said both his museum and the Lucas are rebalancing the scale toward what audiences want.

The museum doesn't use wall text to describe the art on display. It doesn't tell visitors where to find specific works. Bates said the goal is discovery without hierarchy.

At the museum's press preview on Wednesday, Sept. 2, Hobson framed the mission in populist terms. "This narrative art is important because it depicts the myths that anchor us, the stories that we believe in," she said, as the Daily Trojan reported. Lucas, 82 and a USC alumnus, began collecting original comic art as a college student in the 1960s. Hobson, an established collector, helped broaden the collection's representation of Black artists, according to senior curator Ryan Linkof.

The 300,000-square-foot building, designed by architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, sits on a 13-acre campus that replaced an asphalt parking lot. Landscape architect Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA designed the grounds, which include 300 newly planted trees. The building is clad in 1,500 custom fiberglass-reinforced polymer panels and was designed without a single straight line, according to Architectural Record. Two theaters, a research library and a rooftop restaurant called the Skywalker Grill round out the campus.

General admission costs $25 for adults. Visitors 17 and under enter free. Residents of the surrounding 90037 ZIP code, home to more than 65,000 people in South LA, qualify for free admission through the museum's LM37 pass program, which launched in August and covers a pass holder plus one guest, KTLA reported. California EBT card holders and active-duty military members also get in free.

When tickets first went on sale, some buyers reported waiting more than four hours to reach the purchase page.

What's next: The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public Tuesday, Sept. 22, at Exposition Park. Timed tickets are required for all visitors, including LM37 pass holders.