BCAM debuts at LACMA

On Feb. 16, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens its new Broad Contemporary Art Museum, the centerpiece of the first phase of its campus expansion and renovation designed by Renzo Piano. For the public opening weekend of Feb. 16-18, the museum will offer free admission with timed tickets. The three-story, 60,000-square-foot BCAM is the result of a unique arrangement with philanthropist and Longtime LACMA trustee Eli Broad. Broad and his wife Edythe paid for construction of the $50-million facility and established a $10 million fund for acquisitions. BCAM features works from the Broad Art Foundation and the couple's personal holdings, as well as pieces from other lenders and from the LACMA collection. Some 200 postwar works will be on view, many shown in galleries devoted to single artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly, John Baldessari, Jeff Koons and Richard Serra. Serra's work occupies the entire first floor. A streetlight installation by Chris Burden and a palm garden designed by Robert Irwin are located outside the museum.

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The first phase of the campus transformation also features a new 8,100-square-foot grand entrance on Wilshire Boulevard, a covered concourse running from LACMA West to the Japanese Pavilion on the east side of the campus, a new atrium in the Ahmanson building that serves as the gateway to LACMA East, an underground parking garage and colorful screens on the Wilshire facade that visually link the new and existing buildings.

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