LACMA + BCAM = A FUTURE

The not-so-little engine that could

Comments (0) By Christopher Miles Wednesday, Jan 9 2008

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Gifts that Keep on Giving

Local institutions winced in 2005 when real estate developer Edward R. Broida gave 62 works from his collection of modern and contemporary art to the National Gallery of Art in D.C., and again in 2006, when upon his death, 175 works went east to MoMA. Govan is hopeful of achieving what he has called a “critical mass of prestige” that would prevent L. A. collectors from viewing their own local institutions as second-rung locations for depositing their treasures, and LACMA might even begin to draw donations from elsewhere. Recent major gifts including 130 works of modern art, 20 of them Picassos, from the Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection, might just begin to turn LACMA into a gravitational force for gifts.

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THE GIANT ON THE BLOCK

The LACMA West building boasts 300,000 square feet of space, most of which LACMA visitors have never seen unless they shopped there when it was still a May Company department store. Phase 2 of LACMA’s Transformation includes overhauling and increasing the gallery spaces already created for special exhibitions, an expansion of the Boone Children’s Gallery, a video and new-media lab, rehabbed library and study collections, new curatorial and administrative offices, a restaurant, retail space and a bookstore.

THE LETTER C

It’s the letter that makes the LACMA acronym an awkward bit of verbiage, but it stands for County, and is central to the museum’s complex, daunting and also rich position as the people’s art museum. Its ever-expanding reach as an encyclopedic museum, and its clear moves toward a more multicultural consideration of contemporary art, make it a more accessible and interesting location for a diverse constituency.

The Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), along with the new BP Grand Entrance, opens with a free community weekend, Feb. 16-18. For information: (323) 857-6000 or lacma.org.