LACMA Geffen Galleries to open across Wilshire in April
AERIAL VIEW of LACMA buildings, including David Geffen Galleries, in the Miracle Mile. photo © Iwan Baan
After two decades in the making—and, some might say, as the icing on the cake of an overall expansion of the LACMA campus—the David Geffen Galleries is set to open Sun., April 19.
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor designed the 900-foot-long elevated concrete space, which spans across Wilshire Boulevard. The new 90-gallery home of LACMA’s permanent collection features city and hillside views.
In a first among museums, new commissions will sit alongside European antiquities, and objects from around the globe will be installed to forge connections across time and place, instead of traditional markers of countries and periods. Visitors will be able to discover works for themselves, without following a prescribed path, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan has said.
“The horizontality of the new building is both a reflection of Los Angeles and a core concept within LACMA’s vision for presenting the permanent collection,” Govan wrote on LACMA’s website.
He continued, “It positions art from all areas of the museum’s diverse collections on the same plane, to better accommodate the shift in LACMA’s curatorial strategy from fixed presentations to rotating exhibitions of the permanent collection. The building is designed to mirror the diversity of our vast city and, through design and spirit, to advance LACMA’s mission to serve the public by encouraging profound cultural experiences for the widest array of audiences.”
It’s a path forged with controversy. After the design was introduced, one of the museum’s original donors, the Ahmanson Foundation, withdrew contributions.
Among issues reported at the time, in 2020, was the planned demolition of the original Ahmanson building to make room for the Geffen as well as possible reduced permanent gallery space for the largest art museum in the Western United States.
ARTWORK IS MOVED into the Geffen Gallery, where it is uncrated, and the museum’s white-glove service begins installing the pieces.
The museum has actually increased in gallery space during its yearslong transformation, which included the addition of Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) in 2008 and the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion in 2010. The additions have increased LACMA’s exhibitions space from 130,000 to 220,000.
Founded in the 1950s by banker Howard F. Ahmanson, the Ahmanson Foundation is a major donor of European Old Master paintings and other works to LACMA. Its current president is William Ahmanson of Hancock Park.
The new gallery space has 110,000 square feet of gallery space, replacing approximately 120,000 square feet of gallery space overall. The new building includes a theater, educational spaces, restaurants and cafes, a museum shop, and covered multipurpose event spaces.
Gallery space was increased by moving LACMA’s administrative offices across the street and moving art storage off-site.
Among the reasons to elevate the $720,000 Geffen was the desire to create more park space in the otherwise urban setting. Some 3.5-acres of additional outdoor space showcase new and beloved public artworks, making LACMA unlike any other urban museum in the U.S.
“Glass walls invite museum visitors to look out at the landscape and light of Los Angeles, and allow passersby to see in,” Govan wrote on the LACMA site. “This translucent exterior visually connects the galleries to everyday life on Wilshire Boulevard and in the surrounding park, and offers spectacular views of the city and mountains beyond. Zumthor’s design also adds ample new public outdoor space to create an even more accessible cultural and social hub for the community.”
A total of 45 curators are collaborating on the initial non-traditional installation to fill the 110,000-square-foot space, which will include up to 3,000 objects from its permanent collection of 170,000.
“We hope that our collaborative, cross-departmental approach to our display will allow the collection to convey a variety of histories—some of which haven’t been able to be told before—rather than reinforcing traditional museum hierarchies,” Leah Lehmbeck, curator and Department Head of European Paintings & Sculpture and American Art, explained in an email.
“It is important to us to have the installations present a more expansive view of art history, where our visitors are invited to explore the collection in multiple ways rather than through a prescribed path,” she added.
Works by Georges de La Tour, Matisse and Van Gogh will be among those on display.
On the ground floor Plaza Level, the new outdoor space features sculptures by Jeff Koons, Calder and Rodin, among others.
A ribbon-cutting will mark the start of a two-week priority member access of the museum through Sun., May 3. A free day of activities will be offered on May 3 and access to the galleries for NexGenLA members, a free youth membership for L.A. County residents 17 and younger.
Online ticket reservations are available to members now.
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