The Broad Museum: A Must See

If you are an art lover, specifically a lover of contemporary art from 1950-present, do whatever it takes to get to the Broad Museum.  You won't be disappointed.  This museum in downtown Los Angeles was designed by the architectural firm Diller Scofidio and Renfro, and is made of 2,500 fiberglass reinforced concrete panels and 650 tons of steel.  It includes 50,000 square feet of gallery space.  It was designed to use natural light, and the viewing of the artwork is wonderful.  Oh, it was designed by a woman.

Built by philanthropists Eli and Edyth Broad, the museum is home to nearly 2,000 works of art and holds one of the most prominent collections of postwar and contemporary art worldwide.  The Broads began collecting contemporary art in the early 1980's.  Their goal was collect living artists who represented the art and culture of their time.  With in-depth representations of influential contemporary artists such as Basquiat, Kruger, Twombly, Ruscha, Koons, Johns, Sherman, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg.  The collection enriches and inspires an appreciation of contemporary art.

Entrance to the museum is free!  If you plan ahead, you can make a reservation for exact date and time.  Reservations are taken on the first of every month for the following month.  If you don't reserve a time you will wait in a very long line.

A couple of other nice features of the museum are the wonderful small gift shop, the second floor, which is the storage area for artwork not yet hung, and the phone app that gives an audio tour of the museum.  The storage area can be seen from various areas of the third floor.  Hundreds of pieces are hung on racks, and will eventually be hung in the museum.  Right now they are adding about one piece per week.

I went to the Broad with a group from Ocean Hills.  A great group of men and women, and lunch afterwards at Taix, one of the oldest restaurants in LA.  Taix opened in 1927, and is still turning out delicious French food.  Our bus driver Lenny gave us a tour of downtown LA as we approached the museum, and I can't believe  how the city has changed  since I lived there.  The area around the museum is a plethora of culture.  The Dorothy Chandler, Disney Hall, MOCA and the Broad Museum are all within a few blocks of each other.  Take a day trip to downtown LA and enjoy some of the great things it has to offer.