LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced today the launch of Collator, an innovative tool to engage with LACMA’s permanent collection. Inspired by the museum’s commitment to showcasing its vast collections to a diverse and geographically dispersed audience, this new digital platform allows users to curate and publish a custom 24-page paperback book featuring their own selections from the museum’s encyclopedic collections. Collator incorporates new webbased customization technologies that allow users to browse more than 1,000 highresolution images to create the theme, title, and introductory text of their print-on-demand books. And new images are added regularly. Collator is an initiative of The Hyundai Project: Art+Technology at LACMA, a special partnership between Hyundai Motor and LACMA.

“Collator explores the exciting possibilities of museum publishing. This project is an idea we’ve been developing for several years and is now ready for testing,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “By incorporating the latest innovations in print-on-demand technology, Collator gives creative control to audiences all over the world to create an art book of their choice, all featuring works from the museum’s encyclopedic collection. It’s been a pleasure to watch LACMA’s curators engage with Collator to create books about exhibitions and areas of the permanent collection. This platform gives curators the flexibility to update catalogue content in real time, which is unique to the museum publishing field.” Govan continued, “The intersection of art and technology has always been a part of LACMA’s programs, partnerships, and exhibitions. We’re grateful to our partner Hyundai Motor in supporting this dynamic initiative.”

Collator is available at collator.lacma.org. To learn more about how to create a book with Collator, watch this step-by-step video at collator.lacma.org/how-to or visit the Collator FAQ page. Custom art books made with Collator are available for $18.95, tax and shipping not included. Artists represented on Collator include Max Beckmann, Chris Burden, Julia Margaret Cameron, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Sarah Charlesworth, Georges de la Tour, Richard Diebenkorn, Philip Guston, David Hammons, Katsushika Hokusai, Frida Kahlo, Edward Kienholz, Käthe Kollwitz, Daniel Joseph Martinez, James McNeill Whistler, Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Rivera, Ed Ruscha, Ilene Segalove, Millard Sheets, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Jim Shaw, Alexis Smith, Vincent van Gogh, and Jean-Antoine Watteau, to name just a few.

To date, LACMA’s curators have created several Collator books, including a companion publication to This is Not a Selfie: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection, a touring permanent collection photography exhibition curated by Eve Schillo, as well as A New Generation of Creators, highlights from the The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. Collators for future LACMA exhibitions include The Jeweled Isle: Art from Sri Lanka (on view at LACMA, December 9, 2018–February 10, 2019).