Put this in the ICYMI file (that’s short for In Case You Missed It, if you’re not into Twitter abbreviations, by the way.) The O.J. Simpson Pop-Up Museum opened a five-day run on Aug. 18 in Los Angeles.
Yes, like its namesake, it had only a short run.
The temporary exhibit at the Coagula Curatorial Gallery in historic Chinatown featured dozens of artifacts from the so-called 11-month “Trial of the Century” — when the former NFL superstar was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and restaurant waiter Ron Goldman — as well as a previously unseen collection of 60 bootleg Simpson t-shirts, original artwork inspired by the case and a 1994 Ford Bronco (but not the 1994 Ford Bronco; that one is on display at a crime museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.)
Tickets to the pop-up museum were $5 each at the door or $4 in advance.
“The museum is about the phenomenon associated with [Simpson], not about him. It’s dedicated to the pop-culture phenomenon and our culture’s relationship with this [case] as an entity, as something that happened. … If you’re offended by it, you’re missing the point,” Adam Papagan, the museum’s curator and creator of the $45 per person O.J. Tour of the Brentwood neighborhood where the murders took place, told Mashable.com. The website summed up its take on the exhibit with this headline: “O.J. Simpson will get his own pop-up museum, and it’s just … ugh”
“The museum’s collection gives off the sense that somebody decided to go on a crazy nostalgic ‘90s eBay shopping spree and then display it in a gallery,” Newsweek.com reports. “From a sociological perspective, it’s impressive to see the extent some people went to profit off the case. From a moralistic standpoint, it’s painful to imagine how a member of Nicole’s or Ron’s family would react to seeing a board game dedicated to the case.”
Simpson, now 70, will be released on parole on Oct. 1 from a prison sentence for his role in a 2007 incident involving stealing memorabilia.
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