{"id":3574,"date":"2015-10-28T13:54:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T18:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/~travelwriting\/?page_id=3574"},"modified":"2015-10-28T13:56:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T18:56:46","slug":"the-broad-museum-is-another-reason-los-angeles-has-become-art-center","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/travelwriting\/?page_id=3574","title":{"rendered":"The Broad museum is another reason Los Angeles has become art center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted October 28, 2015<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By KIT PILOSOF<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES — Upon first glance, people have been calling it a cheese grater, the bottom of a shoe, a pit of foam and rain falling. The concrete block looks as if slashed with large knives or dimples and resembles the stature of a Ken-Barbie doll whose broad shoulders are stacked above his tight waist.<\/p>\n

Sitting at just under 2,000 art pieces by 200 artists, including Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and many young Los Angeles-based artists, Eli and Edye Broad simply needed a space to store their art.<\/p>\n

Enter The Broad Museum.<\/p>\n

Billionaire and philanthropist, Eli Broad, 81, and his wife, Edythe, 79, arrived in L.A. from Detroit in 1963 and have spent years helping the city enhance its artistic influence. Prior to opening this museum, the couple sought out local artists, helping them to make a name for themselves, and regularly allowed museums to borrow art from their lending library, The Broad Art Foundation. This is the first time that their entire personal collection is being showcased.<\/p>\n

A 15-minute wait in an L.A. heat wave made entering the cool confines of The Broad that much more comfortable. The ground floor walls organically curve to resemble an underlord\u2019s cave and an escalator pushes you through a tight tunnel that opens up to the main exhibition floor.<\/p>\n

The 23-foot ceilings are overwhelming in contrast to the first level. Each room is organized by artist and theme to bring you through the rooms without much thought. The couple has been building its art collection for the last five decades.<\/p>\n

With a belief that the greatest collections are built when the art is being made, the Broads took to collecting art of their own time. Famous works include postwar and contemporary artworks as well as Jeff Koons\u2019 famous Balloon Dog and the statue of Michael Jackson and his pet monkey, Bubbles.<\/p>\n

\"Jeff<\/a>

Jeff Koons, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, was made in 1988 out of ceramic, glaze, and paint<\/p><\/div>\n

Broad financed the museum for $140 million and chose Diller Scofidio + Renfro out of six architects to design the 120,000-square-foot building that includes exhibition space, a parking garage and offices.<\/p>\n

The museum not only offers free entry, but staff members are volunteers well-versed in the collection so that they can answer even the most in-depth questions and converse with visitors to aid them in their analytics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just opened a few weeks ago, but have been studying the art for months,\u201d said Trudy Singer, a volunteer standing next to Charles Ray\u2019s \u201cFall \u201991,\u201d a sculpture of a female mannequin donning hot pink \u201chigh-fashion\u201d business attire enlarged to an Amazonian scale in order to produce a hallucinatory level of existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cStand behind her to take a picture. Her eight-foot height is magnified this way,\u201d Singer suggested.<\/p>\n

\"Madison<\/a>

Madison Roehrig, 5-foot-8, looks minuscule next to the 8-foot statue<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAdvance reservations for The Broad are completely booked through the end of the year. Visitors can book tickets for January and February on our website now. We\u2019ve had over three hundred thousand advance reservations booked so far,\u201d said Alex Capriotti, director of marketing and communications at the museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the most popular artists on view include Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein and Kara Walker,\u201d Capriotti continued.<\/p>\n

One young woman stood alone nearly in tears over a David Wojarowicz piece, entitled \u201cThe Newspaper as National Voodoo: A Brief History of the U.S.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this painting because I don\u2019t understand it. I feel like I\u2019ve been staring at it for 15 minutes and I\u2019m not getting bored. It\u2019s playing with my emotions. I know I\u2019m saddened by it and confused, but I don\u2019t want to pull it apart completely. I\u2019m moved by it and think I could come up with never ending ideas as to why the artist put the pieces together as he did. I won\u2019t come close to the real meaning but this speaks of all art for me; it\u2019s controlled in its creation but mad in self-expression. If that makes any sense,\u201d said Samantha D\u2019Alessio, 20, an acting student from L.A.<\/p>\n

Wojorawicz worked in all areas of the arts from writing to painting to performing. This particular piece he made during the AIDS crisis in New York to highlight how homosexuals were oppressed in society. He worked to incorporate activism into art with the goal to rise above stigmas by creating strong, thought-provoking reactions.<\/p>\n

\"Made<\/a>

Made in 1986 “The Newspaper as National Voodoo: A Brief History of the U.S.A.” is made of acrylic, spray paint, and collage on wood.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s supposedly a life-size fire truck the Broad\u2019s have that would not fit in the museum,\u201d said Emily Warren, 20, visiting L.A. from New York. \u201cI discovered The Broad on Instagram and am obsessed with Takasha Marakami so I instantly wanted to come. I\u2019m disappointed I didn\u2019t get to see the Infinity Room. It was too busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artist Yayoi Kusama built a room made up of multi-colored L.E.D. lights reflected by mirrors inside a 200-square-foot room.<\/p>\n

On the ground floor of The Broad, it takes about 45 seconds to walk through and can only be viewed by one person at a time.<\/p>\n

This was the Broad\u2019s way of giving back to L.A. — a place unlike other major cities because as Eli has said it accepts people from all walks of life, is the contemporary art capital of the world and has, during the last 50 years, been very good to him and Edye.<\/p>\n

If You Go<\/strong><\/p>\n