The Broad: Los Angeles’ Electrifying Private Contemporary Art Museum

The Broad

Los Angeles’ latest museum of Contemporary art, The Broad, is already a victim of its own success with limited access due to overbooking and queues stretching for an hour, to see some of the attractions, like the Kusama Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away.

Photo: Jeff Koons room Broad Museum 

 Founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, the museum was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler and offers free general admission. The private museum is home to over 2,000 works of art which comprises the Broad collection. This vast body of work is considered to be among the most prestigious Postwar and contemporary art collections, in the world. The architecture, noted for its innovative “veil-and-vault” concept of design, contains 120,000-square-foot of exhibition space. At a cost of $140-million, the building features two floors of galleries, to showcase works of important cutting edge art.  The Broad’s comprehensive collection and the headquarters of The Broad Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library are also housed in the building.

Photo: Cy Twombly room Broad Museum 

We sent our LA correspondent Jake Robinson to see the collection and he took a few snaps of this great new institution. The Broad is full of surprises. It has created a stunning collection of contemporary art from the 1950s to the present. Pop Art is heavily represented in the collection, however there is a good balance of Abstract works by Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Diebenkorn.  Many of the artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons are household names but the collection also features emerging artists giving them the opportunity to exhibit alongside the established. The concept of the museum makes it accessible to the widest possible audience by presenting exhibitions and operating a lending program to art museums and galleries worldwide.

Photo: Andy Warhol Room Broad Museum 

Will this become LA’s Tate Modern? If it continues its current trajectory it will undoubtedly become a major player in the rich history of private museums in the United States which started with the Frick, Gardner and Barnes Foundation and now continues this legacy with the Rubell Collection, the Perez and now the Broad. 

All Photos: Jake Robinson © artlyst 2015

Photo: John Baldessari Broad Museum 

Photo: Jean Michel Basquiat  Broad Museum

Photo: Robert Therrien The Broad Museum 

Photo: Chuck Close The Broad Museum

Photo: Christopher Wool and Jeff Koons sculpture Broad Museum

Photo: El Anatsui The Broad Museum 

Tags

, , ,