Posts Tagged ‘Dia Art Foundation’
Chapter 1 (Part 2): LACMA’s BCAM – A Museum Within a Museum
“Even though Eli is not involved with the museum any longer, his name is still on that building. We should have never called it a museum. How can LACMA have a museum? LACMA is the museum.”
– Lynda Resnick, LACMA Trustee[i]
In February 2008, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The Renzo Piano-designed BCAM is not an autonomous museum; it is one of several buildings on LACMA’s museum campus (the largest American art museum west of Chicago).
LACMA was founded in 1961, when it seceded from the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art in Exposition Park. The new art museum opened in 1965 with three buildings designed by William Pereira: the Bing, Ahmanson and Hammer buildings. In 1986, the Art of the Americas Building (then the Anderson Building) opened, and was followed in 1988, with the Pavilion for Japanese Art. The museum continued to grow when LACMA purchased the neighboring May Company department store building in 1994. (LACMA is currently collaborating with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to bring a museum to the vacant building.[ii]) In 2001, plans for a tabula rasa campus designed by Rem Koolhaas were scrapped due to its ambitious scale (all existing buildings would have been raised) and lack of public support (a proposed bill would have provided public funds for the project, but was not passed by voters[iii]). Then in 2004, the board approved a multi-year capital campaign called Transformation.[iv]
Michael Govan, Wallis Annenberg Director and CEO of LACMA, inherited Transformation when he took LACMA’s helm in 2006 (little more than a year before BCAM’s inauguration). Exciting, high profile, high-cost building projects are Govan’s specialty. Before coming to LACMA, Govan had been the director of the Dia Art Foundation where he oversaw the renovation of an old Nabisco factory in the Hudson River Valley, into Dia Beacon—a gargantuan facility capable of housing many large-scale, contemporary art installations. Before Dia, Govan worked under Richard Armstrong at the Guggenheim Foundation and aided in the realization of the Guggenheim Bilbao. Govan had the resume required to lead LACMA during Transformation. Eli Broad was on the search committee that lured Govan to LACMA.[v]
Written by exhibitioninquisition
June 27, 2013 at 2:27 AM
Posted in Acquisitions, Broad Art Foundation, Contemporary, Donors, LACMA, Leadership, Los Angeles, Permanent Collection, Private Collectors, Starchitecture, Thesis
Tagged with Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, acquisition, Ahmanson, Ai WeiWei, Art of the Americas, Art of the Pacific, Art+Film Gala, Barbara Kruger, BCAM, Bing, British Petroleum, Broad Art Foundation, Broad Contemporary Art Museum, Bruce Nauman, building, campus, capital campaign, Chris Burden, Christian Marclay, Christopher Knight, City of Los Angeles, collection, contemporary art, corten steel, Craig Kauffman, curator, Dia Art Foundation, Dia Beacon, director, donor, Ed Ruscha, Edvard Munch, Edward Kienholz, Eli Broad, exhibition, Franklin Sirmans, Franz West, Gallery, Glen Ligon, Glenn Lowry, Guggenheim Bilbao, Guggenheim Foundation, Hammer, James Turrell, John Baldessari, Jorge Pardo, Julio Le Parc, Leon Black, Levitated Mass, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Lynda Resnick, Mark Hagen, May Company, Metropolis II, Michael Govan, Michael Heizer, MOCA, model, MOMA, National Gallery, Nicolas Berggruen, Pavilion for Japanese Art, Peter Zumthor, philanthropy, Pre-Columbian, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, Resnick Pavilion, Richard Armstrong, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, Robert Rauschenberg, Rodarte, Sequence, Shirin Neshat, The Scream, Theaster Gates, Transformation, travertine, trustee, update, William Pereira, Wilshire Blvd