LOS ANGELES — Last week, the public got a sneak preview of the new David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the two-story concrete structure in the Brutalist style replaces several outdated buildings that comprised LACMA’s heterogeneous campus with a single, bold organic form that sweeps across Wilshire Boulevard.The museum won’t officially open until next April and is currently devoid of art, allowing visitors to scrutinize the architecture — which can give the impression of a parking garage or airport terminal at times, while the smaller galleries conjure intimate, if stark, chapel-like spaces. There is, however, one artwork that has already been installed, offering a link to the old LACMA, albeit in a very different context. Tony Smith’s “Smoke” (1967; 2005), a seven-ton aluminum sculpture resembling a massive, abstract spider, sits prominently behind a fence outside one of the museum’s main entrances, not far from Chris Burden’s iconic “Urban Light” (2008) installation. “Smoke” now sits prominently outside one of the museum’s main entrances. (photo Matt Stromberg/Hyperallergic)Some will take comfort in its familiarity, the return of an old friend, while others will no doubt interpret the new placement of “Smoke” as yet another sign of the novel building’s rupture with the past. Over the past several years, LACMA’s renovation has been hotly debated and critiqued for its design, which critics say offers less exhibition space than the demolished buildings, its $720 million budget, and the disruptive curatorial strategy it exemplifies. Its 110,000 square feet of gallery space is concentrated on the second floor, offering a non-hierarchical, non-chronological tour of LACMA’s collection, which includes 150,000 objects from around the world spanning 6,000 years. “We’re rewriting art history for the 21st century,” Michael Govan, LACMA’s director and an indefatigable champion of the new building and curatorial project, told journalists at last week’s press preview.Reflecting Smith’s fascination with patterns found in nature, “Smoke” is composed of 45 identical, eight-foot-long, 300-pound octahedral units that fit together to form a repeating series of hexagonal shapes supported by eight pillars. Eschewing the unitary simplicity of Smith’s earlier works, such as “Die” (1962), “Smoke” has a geometric complexity that is both captivating and confounding, challenging viewers to grasp its formal logic as they move around it.The sculpture was first shown in the 1967 exhibition Scale as Content at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; this original version, however, was a plywood mock-up that was later destroyed. (The work was featured on the October 13, 1967, cover of Time magazine with the caption “Art Outgrows the Museum,” ironic in retrospect, given its history at LACMA.) Adam Swisher inside Tony Smith’s “Smoke” in 2008 (photo © Museum Associates/LACMA)In 2005, Lippincott, a Connecticut-based metal fabrication company, created the final aluminum version, which was installed inside LACMA’s now-demolished Ahmanson building in 2008. Its hulking form dominated the central atrium. (It is Smith’s largest sculpture originally conceived for an interior space.) In its current exterior site — roughly 10 feet from its original home in the Ahmanson — its presence is somewhat diminished, dwarfed by Zumthor’s concrete and glass edifice. Its new placement does allow for a more dramatic range of light effects, however, as the play of sunlight on the black planes and the shadows cast underneath change constantly throughout the day.“Smoke” is bolted together from the inside, so that no seams or signs of its construction are visible. This means that installers have to crawl around inside the hollow structures, some of which are equipped with ladders. Lippincott hired Adam Swisher to work on the install team at LACMA. Though Swisher did not have an art background, he had experience as a skilled spelunker — a cave explorer — and was therefore comfortable navigating narrow, dark spaces.When “Smoke” was deinstalled in 2019 in anticipation of the Ahmanson’s demolition, a note written by Swisher was found inside the sculpture. “Dear Person of the Future, Welcome to the guts of ‘Smoke,’” it began, scribbled on a small piece of lined paper. What followed were words of solidarity addressed to the next installer. “It takes an adventurous spirit to crawl inside a monstrous metal labyrinth,” Swisher wrote, concluding with an expression of optimism: “I hope the future is a place of respect for the environment, extinct racism, healthcare for everyone, peace on earth, and love of life.”Swisher’s note placed inside the sculpture (photo courtesy LACMA)Swisher’s note was later included in Not I: Throwing Voices (1500 BCE–2020 CE), a 2021 exhibition that drew on the museum’s permanent collection, emphasizing unorthodox juxtapositions across departments, eras, and places. It is an example of the non-hierarchical, cross-disciplinary strategy that LACMA says it will adopt in its new building.Inspired by Swisher’s time capsule, the team behind the reinstallation of “Smoke” placed their own letter inside the sculpture, collectively written by approximately 10 staffers from the museum’s curatorial, registration, and installation departments. “Adam’s message is from one person crawling around inside ‘Smoke’ to the next people crawling around inside,” Julia Latané, head of art preparation and installation, told Hyperallergic. “We wanted a message from present-day LACMA to the LACMA of an unknown future, with visitors in mind.”“We hope that our visitors feel welcome here,” the new note reads. “We hope that the efforts so many of us have put towards the new building have been received with grace, inspiration, and even love by the thousands who have been able to pass through here. We hope that the art — from this enormous sculpture to the tiniest object in the galleries — has opened eyes and minds.”David Geffen Galleries at LACMA; exterior view from East West Bank Commons southeast toward Wilshire Boulevard with Tony Smith’s “Smoke” (1967) in foreground (photo © Iwan Baan, courtesy LACMA)Despite the impression that Swisher’s note has left on many at LACMA, no one Hyperallergic spoke to at the museum knew much about him or how to contact him. Reached by phone at his home in Maryland, Swisher said he was “taken aback, a little speechless.” He was unaware that his note had even been found, let alone that it had taken on such a significant role in the story of “Smoke.”“Maybe it was discovered before its time, before some of those things came to fruition … That’s a little bit disconcerting,” Swisher told Hyperallergic, reflecting on how much — or how little — the world has changed in the 17 years since he left his note inside the warren of aluminum tubes. “I still stand by those words. Maybe I’m just an eternal optimist.”“I don’t have any pride in authorship of the note, but it really makes me happy to hear that it took on a life of its own, that it is a positive force in the community,” Swisher continued. “I suppose it’s a good reminder that you don’t necessarily have to be out in front making a stir. Sometimes you just have to plant a seed and let the forces of the universe do the rest.”