The South Austin Museum of Popular Culture – a local institution that preserves visual aspects of the city's music scene – has relocated to a new home behind Threadgill’s Old No. 1 at 6416 North Lamar Blvd. The museum is also rebranding itself as the Austin Museum of Popular Culture.
"We are a non-profit that collects, preserves and exhibits Austin music-related art from about 1955 to present day," says executive director Leea Mechling. "We think it's important to preserve these items, so people can see and appreciate what came before and what came together to make Austin the city that it is today."
For the past 15 years, the museum has shared a building with the Planet K on South Lamar Boulevard, but the space was getting cramped.
"We need better space to store our collection, and better space to display our exhibits," Mechling says. "So many people, new people are moving here who really don't know. They've heard that Austin's the Live Music Capitol of the World, and they like a lot of things they've heard about Austin, but they don't really know."
The museums' first event in its new location is this Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. featuring art by the granddaddy of Austin poster art Jim Franklin, a Galveston native who moved to Austin in the 1960s and helped launch a famous psychedelic music venue called theVulcan Gas Company. (An electronic music venue with the same name opened in 2014.)
