Author: Laura Bowen
After almost five years in the making, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum opened to the public on Feb. 16 as a sparkling new addition to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
The $56 million project is stunning before even stepping inside the building; the outside is flanked by rows of lit street lamps-an enchanting Chris Burden work entitled “Urban Light.”
Inside, visitors are faced with two gigantic walk-through sculptures by Richard Serra. After going up an enormous glass elevator featuring Barbara Kruger’s “Untitled (Shafted),” a giant three-story digital image backdrop, the second floor features a large section of works by Damien Hirst. Included is the infamous lamb in formaldehyde, “Away From the Flock,” a beautiful set of stained glass windows made of butterfly wings, “The Kingdom of the Father,” and a display with an animatronic robot called “The Collector.”
On the second floor, Robert Therrien’s “Under the Table” evokes childhood memories in the form of a gigantic, walk-through kitchen set. In his section of the collection, John Baldessari’s witty side makes an appearance in “Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell,” which features a list of just that. Jeff Koons’ vast portion of the exhibit features a giant balloon animal dog, a large, mirrored and cracked egg shell-which is being used to advertise the collection as a nod to the slogan “BCAM Born”-and a life-size gilded sculpture of Michael Jackson and his chimpanzee Bubbles.
Interspersed within the exhibit are works like the grotesque photographs of Cindy Sherman, who often alters people’s appearances to make them look deformed and dresses her subjects as clowns and the Virgin Mary, among others. There is also a series of painted-on tapestries by Leon Golub with disturbing and in-your-face subject matter like “Interrogation,” which portrays a man being beaten by police officers. Ed Ruscha’s unsettling painting “Gospel” has that word written on the canvas with arrows stuck through it.
Pieces by household names like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jasper Johns are also included in the collection. The artwork on display has a seductive, youthful charm to it, especially because of its interactive nature, on the whole.
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