Tut exhibit irks, intrigues

I was very disappointed in the King Tut exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [“Audience With the Boy King,” by David Pagel, June 17]. When we got there with our advance tickets, we had to wait in four sets of lines to get into the museum, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds, but it should have prepared me for the hundreds of mini-lines you have to wait in once you get inside. You see, each artifact has a line. The exhibit is not in one large room but in many small, dark, claustrophobic rooms with multiple objects to view in each one. We were packed in there like sardines and it made viewing these precious items miserable.

If you cannot stand for two or more hours, need to use the restroom within that time, have a small child or baby, are offended by people stepping on you, or are claustrophobic, I would recommend not going.

Jeanne Lacombe

Torrance

*

David PAGEL obviously resents that the less tutored might have a good time experiencing the King Tut exhibit. I saw the original 1976 exhibition and this one is better. It not only tells the story more clearly, but it gives the viewer a fuller sense of the mystery and strangeness of the world from which these artifacts came -- which is perhaps the main reason we’re interested in them. If it uses modern technology and dramatic stagecraft to accomplish this, why not?

Gershon Weltman

Sherman Oaks