Robert Therrien at the Broad

Robert Therrien, No title (room, panic doors), 2013-2014. LACMA

You can't say that Robert Therrien (1947–2019) is underappreciated. He was one of the first artists to get a solo show at MOCA (1984). He was in the Venice Biennale the same year and the Whitney Biennial the year after that. Leo Castelli represented him. LACMA did a Therrien show in 2000, and now the Broad has opened the artist's largest survey ever. Therrien's Under the Table may be the most popular (Tik Tok'd) work in the Broad collection. 

Robert Therrien, Under the Table, 1994. The Broad

But how many visitors catch the name of the artist who made the 18-ft.-tall dinette set? Therrien is far from a household name, and a certain confusion is justifiable. Therrien's work spans minimalism, serialism, and trompe l'oeil; whimsy, memory, and memento mori. There is less a signature style than a list of obsessions.

Installation view, "Robert Therrien: This Is a Story" at the Broad

That makes the Broad show, "Robert Therrien: This Is a Story," an essential skeleton key. It brings together 120 works from throughout the artist's long career. This makes it possible to see the through-lines. Yes, Therrien is the Little Big Man, using scale as an artistic material. Many of Therrien's objects are much bigger, or much smaller, than expected. Others are untethered from scale, such as his archetypal ovals, bent cones, witch's hats, ranch houses, chapels, snowmen, and clouds. But there's a lot more to Therrien than a gimmick.

Robert Therrien, No title (room, pots and pans I), 2008-2015. Courtesy Artworks Holdings

Two pieces, new to me, fall under the heading of weird architectural spaces. No title (room, pots and pans I) is a full-size Dutch door leading to a stash of outsized pots and pans in a seductively red cubbyhole. It's one of a series of odd rooms inspired by a 9 by 6.5-ft closet in Therrien's studio, intended for storing trash.

Installation view with No title (room, panic doors)

No title (room, panic doors) is an emergency exit at the end of a small hallway with an overhead fluorescent light fixture. The pale blue walls have the numinous glow of the best Light and Space art, brought down to Earth by the vintage institutional doors and a vague sense of menace. LACMA has owned No title (room, panic doors) since 2017 but, as far I can tell, has never exhibited it.

"Robert Therrien: This Is a Story" runs through April 5, 2026. Ed Schad curated with Jen Vanegas Roche. The Broad has had an active exhibition schedule lately, with Therrien quickly following Jeffrey Gibson and preceding Yoko Ono. Is this an accident of scheduling, or declaration of a new commitment to exhibitions?

Center: Robert Therrien, No title (large stainless beard), 1999. Robert Therrien Estate

The beard sculptures in wire and plastic were prompted by photos of Brancusi, whom Therrien admired for his serial transformations of birds. Therrien collected hundreds of images of beards, real and fake, for reference.

Robert Therrien, No title (sidewalk), 2011. Robert Therrien Estate

Best trompe l'oeil sculpture of a sidewalk, ever. I suppose this also has something to do with the question of pedestals, a Brancusi concern.

A salon-style hang emulating those that Therrien improvised in his studio

Robert Therrien, working stencils, drawings, cutouts, and photographs for "Joyce"

Therrien was an avid reader of Joyce Carol Oates. His cartoon personage "Joyce" is named for her. 

Robert Therrien, No title (Soapy, pink), 2017. Robert Therrien Estate

In color, form, and outsized scale, Therrien's No title (Soapy, pink) recalls Vija Celmin's Pink Pearl Eraser.