Michele Stueven
Designed by architect Peter Zumthor, the 900-foot-long horizontal, glass and concrete structure, which overlooks the La Brea Tar Pits, the Pavilion For Japanese Art and stretches over Wilshire Blvd, The David Geffen Galleries at the LA County Museum of Art open to the public on Sunday, May, after 20 years of development.
The main floor, elevated about 30 feet above street level, is the dedicated exhibition space for LACMA’s permanent collection, comprising a winding selection of galleries with varied scales, configurations, and lighting conditions, as well as high ceilings. The David Geffen Galleries were designed to encourage wandering and meandering through 110,000 square feet of gallery space.
The inaugural exhibition is inspired by four major bodies of water: the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea, spanning time and geography.
Ruth Asawa looped wire hanging (Courtesy LACMA)
One of the first works on display upon entering the galleries is Todd Gray’s Octavia’s Gaze (2025), a three-dimensional assemblage of framed photographs of landscapes, people, architectural details, and museum interiors, including a portrait of the author Octavia Butler, who lends her name to the work.
Also on view is Do Ho Suh’s Jagyeong Hall, Gyeongbok Palace (2026), an installation made up of an actual-size contemporary re-creation of a section of the primary Joseon royal palace in Seoul.
Two works commissioned from Lauren Halsey-a 10-foot-long reclining sphinx sculpture and a wall-filling relief-and a newly acquired bust by Tavares Strachan, Fulani (A Map of the Crown) (2024), are installed in the Mediterranean galleries, among works that reflect Egypt’s ancient interplay with Greco-Roman culture on the one side and Nubia on the other.
David Geffen Galleries (Michele Stueven)
Other highlights include Jeff Koons’s Split-Rocker, the 37-foot-tall living sculpture that was recently acquired by LACMA, Diego Rivera’s Flower Day, and a large and diverse selection of textiles from Central Asia to the Andes. New works from LACMA’s collection of 155,000 objects spanning 6,000 years of world history will continue to be added over time,
The building’s elevated exhibition level offers sweeping views of Los Angeles while creating open plazas and a roomy new outdoor public space below, making it the perfect anchor for the LACMA campus, which also includes The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
New works from LACMA’s collection of 155,000 objects spanning 6,000 years of world history will continue to be added over time to the largest art museum in the Western United States.
The Erewhon Cafe is already open on the plaza level, with plans for a larger restaurant and separate wine bar to open in the fall of 2026.
From Kashmir to Cashmere (Courtesy LACMA)
There’s been much discussion pro and con over Zumthor’s use of the gray concrete and glass walls throughout the structure. The floor-to-ceiling glass panels shelter interior galleries with custom curtains made of sputter-plated chrome textiles by Tokyo-based textile designer Reiko Sudō.
But coming from someone who remembers the opening of the original LACMA Museum, which was raised to erect the current horizontal design on a single level, this was long overdue.
Gone are the poorly lit, stuffy, little crowded rooms requiring strong elbows to get close enough to study the art. The works in the David Geffen Galleries are much more accessible and dramatic, with plenty of room and natural light to wander. Yes, there are echoes, but they only add to the new energy that was long overdue for LA’s compelling art scene.
Check out our preview gallery courtesy of LACMA here.
Courtesy LACMA