ELI BROAD: THE BROAD MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES
Eli Broad, who sadly passed away on April 30th, was one of the great philanthropists of the art world. The Broad, the Contemporary Art Museum in Los Angeles, founded and opened by Broad in 2015, has justifiably established itself as one of the world’s great contemporary art museums, a testament to the taste of both Broad and his wife, Edythe.
No visit to Los Angeles is complete without a trip to the museum. The building itself designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, came in for some criticism when it opened being branded old fashioned in concept. I loved it as soon as I set eyes on it. The exterior elevations and the interior gallery spaces wrapped around the central art storage facility (which can be glimpsed through interior glass windows), seeming to flow together perfectly.
When we last visited in August 2018 there was a plethora of works on display, including a couple of infinity rooms by Yayoi Kusama, some monumental works by Jeff Koons including ‘Tulips’ from his Celebrations series and, the first ‘Balloon Dog’ piece, the original production of which was funded by Eli Broad (there is a recent article in the LA Times in which Koons explains how the work came to fruition with Broad’s support).
Reflecting recently on my last visit, two other works stand out. The first, ‘Flag’ by Jasper Johns (illustrated) was one of the first images that I can recall from my childhood. The version at the Broad was created in 1967 during the peak of the Vietnam War, a time of my life that largely shaped my personal and cultural beliefs. I was a teenager embracing rock music and other popular culture, including American literature, film and art, particularly Pop Art. The United States was the holy grail and I wanted to be a part of it. This work for me symbolises that time and still resonates with me today.
The second work is ‘The Visitors, 2012’ by Ragnar Kjartansson, an installation and video art piece. Nine musicians, including members of Sigur Ros, arguably Iceland’s most famous rock band, play and repeat the same piece of music filmed at the same time in different locations at a farm in Upstate New York. The subsequent recording, sixty four minutes long and shown simultaneously on nine separate giant screens, is both monumental and personal, dramatic, moving and stunningly beautiful. It has its humorous moments too, not least the artist himself, filmed whilst playing the guitar in a bath tub.
In the autumn of 2019 it was listed in the UK’s Guardian newspaper as being the best work of art, to date, created in the twenty-first century. It certainly gets my vote and if you ever get the opportunity to see it either in Los Angeles or elsewhere, I strongly urge you to do so.