Groundhog Day 2026
Los Angeles is the city of the future.
—David Geffen, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 4, 2018
We’re a much younger metropolis than New York. Our institutions are still very young and developing.
—Michael Govan in Vogue, Sep. 2, 2025
Anyone who doesn’t think of Los Angeles as an arts capital of the world at this point just isn’t paying attention.
—Time Out Los Angeles, Jan. 16, 2026
Although Eli Broad’s original vision of Grand Street becoming a cultural hub and economic driver for Downtown LA has not fully happened (yet!), it is closer to becoming one that it was a decade ago.
—Forbes magazine, Sep. 21, 2025
Los Angeles is now the contemporary art capital of the world.
—Eli Broad in The New York Times, Oct. 12, 2017
It is hard to believe that Los Angeles didn’t really have a contemporary art museum before LACMA opened in 1965. Over the years the William Pereira designed campus meant to invoke an “art acropolis” with gleaming modernist buildings… created no excitement and no cohesion.
—Forbes magazine, July 10, 2025
Los Angeles isn’t an egghead place, and no one expects the local civic museum to do Nobel-caliber scholarship.… Museums in Southern California compete with the best weather in the world and hundreds of miles of sandy beaches…
—Brian T. Allen, National Review, July 29, 2021
This decade has seen Los Angeles cement its place as, no question, the cultural equal of New York.
—Jason Farago, The New York Times, Sep. 12, 2018
Looking back at his tenure here, [LACMA Director Earl. A.] Powell sees himself as having been in Los Angeles during a time the city came of age culturally.
—William Wilson in Los Angeles Times, Aug. 5, 1992
Presumably the Los Angeles Museum dreams of itself as a West Coast counterpart of New York's Metropolitan.
—The New York Times, Nov. 6, 1966
Given the location of [LACMA], the population it serves and the resources of this population, which has already been proved, plus the excellent start in the nature of the collections, the opportunity is unique to create the kind of museum which the Metropolitan is for New York or the Philadelphia Museum is for Pennsylvania.
—LACMA press release, June 19, 1965
Comments
> that Los Angeles didn’t
> really have a contemporary
> art museum before
> LACMA opened in 1965.
- Forbes, 2025
LOL. You can say that again. Then again, contemporary is easier to pull off for a provincial, municipal-type museum. Art made in the past few decades is generally cheaper and easier to both buy and put on display.
Also, the supply of contemporary is as plentiful as what's available at the LA Art Show each January. Not to mention the annual show in Miami.
So, Michael Govan, please a lot more exhibits that riff on, for example, the chandeliers in NYC's Met Opera.
William Pereira in 1965 regrettably designed a "tract house" museum, whereas Peter Zumthor in 2026 may have regrettably designed a "Public Storage" museum. That's why newer art looking good in exhibit spaces of BCAM or the Resnick whereas older works in the Geffen won't ("what's with all the gray concrete?!") will be Groundhog Day 1965 and Groundhog Day 2026.
Sarcasm aside, I saw a video of the older campus and, whoa, it really was weaker than I remembered is as. Even though Pereira's design has long been described warily or negatively, familiarity breeds both contempt and also complacency.
I don't take his assessment seriously enough to mount a counteroffense.
Only last year, New York saw the reopening of The Studio Museum in Harlem, which has blown my mind with the rich, rich, rich legacy Black artists have contributed to New York culture. It's the best arts-related thing that's happened in New York in years.
When the former LA Times art critic wrote LACMA "might be a de facto museum of contemporary art, but frankly it's not a very good one," I got what he meant---but more vaguely than precisely. Only after seeing the special exhibition schedule of the Metropolitan for the past few years did I totally get his point.