The Broad
Home to Eli and Edythe Broad’s postwar and contemporary art collection, The Broad is Los Angeles’ latest contemporary art museum and having just opened, has quickly become the space for art and design enthusiasts.
The new museum houses more than 200 works and continues to grow each week with pieces regularly being added. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS + R) in collaboration with consulting firm Gensler, the structure sits alongside the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall. Boasting its own magnificent exterior with a 2,500 fiberglass white, porous veil, The Broad both complements the Walt Disney Concert Hall and stands out significantly as an example of high-end architecture.
The Broad has two main functions, as a gallery space and as a vault that functions as storage. The vault, located in the center of the museum, is key to the museum’s The Broad Art Foundation, which has a lending library to increase public access to contemporary art. Visitors can catch glimpses of works stored in the Venetian plastered walls of the vault made up of 36 million pounds of concrete as they walk up and down the museum.
The museum’s displayed collection includes works from prominent artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Koons, Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami, and Keith Haring. Most striking, however, is the museum’s inclusion of artists with works central to recent social and political issues such as Robert Longo’s untitled piece on the Ferguson Police (2014) and Marlene Dumas’ work “Wall Weeping” (2009) which portrays Palestinian citizens lined up against a wall to be searched by Israeli soldiers.
With these relevant, politically and socially charged pieces, it clearly evident that the The Broad is a space for today, emphasising dialogue and approachability around contemporary art.
Words by Perwana Nazif.
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