First Reviews for Geffen
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| Photo: Damien Maloney for The New York Times |
Today the Los Angeles Times (Sam Lubell) and New York Times (Robin Pogrebin) review the David Geffen Galleries. Both reviews are positive, and both contain numerous photos. Even feisty Peter Zumthor is on-message: "I have realized my vision," he told the NYT.
Don't miss photos of art hanging on ultramarine blue and burgundy-black tinted concrete; Reiko Sudo's metallic-sheer curtains; new sculptural commissions by Pedro Reyes and Do Ho Suh; the Koons Split-Rocker in bloom and the reinstalled Calder with the water turned on.
At top, a black-cube gallery for Light and Space art by John McCracken, Fred Eversley, and Craig Kauffman.
Comments
I can gift the NYT review, here, below:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/arts/design/lacma-museum-geffen-galleries.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZVA.iuPA.08rvylHT9GCm&smid=url-share
With its solid gray concrete walls, interior galleries in earthy tones of red and blue and etchings in the plaza paving, the building is designed to feel both ancient and new. “We wanted people to see that this is handmade not by God, but by human beings,” Zumthor said.
Note: The LA Times does not allow gift links to articles. One of the many ways it is NOT the NYT. If you think it is worth it, there are $1 subscriptions for 4 months.
--- J. Garcin
https://www.latimes.com/0000019d-6980-dbcd-a5ff-f9aab6970000-123
The architect Bernard Tschumi contributed this idea to the discussion:
He mentioned that a friend of his once said that a museum should never have a spine, but that it might be like a sponge. "What's interesting about this analogy of the sponge," he thought aloud, "is that it suggests the autonomy and specificity of each of its cells [i.e., galleries], and also an endless combination of linkages and configurations.... A sponge is a seamless whole of sorts that preserves the possibility of heterogeneity."
--- J. Garcin
> and different from the
> mindset of museums
> that are ordered, measured,
> and steadfast.
Not sure how that in the long run will play out. In a way, however, it may be the best option for a museum without the large, mature collections of a Louvre or Met.
One hint of that LACMA's George de la Tour painting. It appears to be displayed more in isolation, more like that of a Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The de la Tour is fine and all, but if LACMA's objects in general are shown in a way suggestive of more space than artworks, that will be the opposite extreme of a Paris museum. Or where a place that seems crammed with more stuff than necessary.
After all, a little can go a long way. Some of the works in the Egyptian galleries of the Met, as another example, after a bit of wandering around, can look and feel like the opposite extreme of, "where's the rest of the collection?"
And it appears the Geffen will have contemporary and modern mixed in with older works. So the square footage already dedicated to that style and period in BCAM and often too many temporary shows in the Resnick too will spill over into the new building. If Michael Govan is too much into places like a Broad or MOCA (or Dia Foundation), LACMA will continue its unfortunate path of "a de facto museum of contemporary art, but frankly...not a very good one."
LA Times:
Not only was the sculpture, fondly referred to as "Hello Girls," one of the museum's earliest prized attractions, Calder also designed a poster commemorating the museum's opening..."The concept of museums commissioning artists is now commonplace. It wasn't commonplace then," said LACMA's...Stephanie Barron...as she watched the fountain's bright yellow, red and blue mobile-like paddles...alongside Sandy Rower, Calder's grandson and head of his foundation.
That's why discussions about where "Hello Girls" would land began very early in the process of designing the new building, said Rower, adding that he even addressed the matter with architect Peter Zumthor.
"Kids coming over here are gonna love it," Rower said. "So are people that have been obsessing on modern art and modernism all their lives — they're gonna be confounded by it."
Barron said getting the placement of the sculpture just right was of utmost importance to the museum and the Calder Foundation.... In the 1980s it was stranded on a hillside in the sculpture garden and later sent for display at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design.
The ability to observe the piece from a 360-degree vantage point allows viewers to see the "balletic nature of the wind and the water," said Barron, adding that she has enjoyed watching people's reactions to the installation as it's gone up. "People who haven't been here for a long time say, 'Oh my God, it's back. It's my favorite piece. It looks so much better. It looks different.' And people who've never seen it say, 'Oh, wow. This just makes me happy.'"
Rower nodded, smiling as the wind pushed a large blue paddle counterclockwise.
"I think your grandfather probably would be really happy with that," Barron said.
The photo in the LA Times article comes with a photo that shows the Diego Rivera painting on a wall all by itself. As with the de la Tour, LACMA apparently has more space (both wall and floor) than artworks to fill it with.
Whether that's sarcasm or hard reality, it's the flip side of a Louvre or Met. Or where a visitor is overwhelmed by the number of objects on display. Perhaps LACMA is shooting for the MOCA effect. Or the feeling of, "is that all there is?!"
But the old-time museum paradigm can be off-putting too. The Louvre format is the extreme of too much, too much. And the Beaux-Arts look and format of American museums built in the early 1900s can be too much like another worn-out cliche (versus the one of gaunt, spartan and hipster-trendy), another version of being in a room where someone is wearing way too much perfume.
The one thing, however, I'm sure about is the Pereira/Hardy-Holzman-Pfeiffer campus was one of the weakest settings of any museum in the US.
I was under the presumption that this came part and parcel with being an encyclopedic museum.
NYT: "Thank you for your attention to LACMA. LACMA is certainly "audacious" if you think of it as a classic 20's "self-centered, elitist type." Certainly a reflection of today's LA. NYT giving it the usual rubber stamp, mostly uncritical coverage, seems so 2026. Very little to the original LACMA. No mention of Kricke's timely and meaningful sculpture that opened the first LACMA in 1965.
At least Urban Lights can be justified on the basis of the fact that LACMA was once a history museum. But art? Not so much. Koons' gigantic garden clearly constitutes "selfie and click bait." At least Calder's piece was allowed to live on in LA.
I suggested to LACMA long ago that they at least give some homage and attention to the LACMA opening in 1965 by bringing back the original 1965 entry sculpture by Kricke called "Space Sculpture." Not a chance, apparently. No respect for the years most of us totally fell in love with LACMA's first installment. Sold to Daimler-Benz in the late 80's.
I am fortunate to own what I would call the very best photograph of Kirke's glamorous (imagine that) and meaningful piece. It was shot in 1966, on a clear early summer night. My Otis Art Institute friend and I did a lot of street photography in the urban areas between MacArthur Park (yes, that MacArthur Park) and La Cienega Park.
If you wish, fill in the NYT gap by searching "kricke lacma sculpture." You will find more than just my photograph. I wish I could do more.
An LA Times writer around the time the museum was being modified for the Anderson building dismissed Kricke's work as a "powder puff." Things like that and Pereira's missteps (etc) made me unconsciously disregard the actual amount of legitimate planning that went into the 1965 building.
LA Times, April 2015:
Erected as a dramatic plaza centerpiece when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art first opened on Wilshire Boulevard 50 years ago, “Space Sculpture” stumbled through a less-than-splendid existence.
It began life as an explosive tower of welded stainless steel rods, stacked up on a pedestal standing in a fountain. In 1967, two years after it went up, a museum conservator told The Times that the stainless steel was beginning to corrode under the biting onslaught of L.A.’s then-notorious smog.
The work was temporarily removed to make way for construction of the hulking Anderson Building for Modern Art... At the behest of LACMA Director Richard Fargo Brown, wealthy electronics industrialist David E. Bright donated the money for “Space Sculpture.” Bright was so enthusiastic about new art that he sponsored an international prize at the venerable Venice Biennale — the only American to do so.
Bright’s own collection featured School of Paris titans....There were New York School masters too...
...the name of German sculptor Norbert Kricke does not stand out. Kricke, born in Duesseldorf and trained in Berlin, was 44 when his sculpture was chosen to grace the LACMA plaza. (He died in 1984.)...Industrialist Norton Simon even made the work’s removal a condition of the possible donation of his spectacular art collection, which didn’t come to pass.
When “Space Sculpture” was dismantled to make way for LACMA’s Anderson Building expansion...the museum sent it on a 10-year loan to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Once the loan period was up, LACMA quietly decided to sell it, leaving a big, unfortunate hole in its collecting history....A spokesman said “the museum entertained several competitive offers,” finally selling the sculpture in Germany in 1988. LACMA declined to reveal the buyer or sale price, and whether it subsequently changed hands is unknown. So is the work’s current whereabouts.
What did David E. Bright, the generous donor, think of all this? We’ll never know... Twelve days after the public first began streaming across the plaza and past “Space Sculpture” to check out L.A.’s aspiring new museum, Bright died from a cerebral hemorrhage... He was 57.
His wife...gave LACMA the cream of his Modern art collection in 1967. The gift ranked as the largest, most important bequest of art — of any kind — that the young museum had yet received. [End quote]
> that this came part and parcel
> with being an encyclopedic
> museum.
The square footage of a Louvre or Met is so huge, even if its full collection isn't on display, it's still a large amount. But the square footage of the Geffen isn't nearly as gargantuan. That's even more obvious if Govan and his curators - for creative reasons (or money-technical reasons too?) - intentionally reduce the amount of works they feel should be on display.
The hip-trendy look of a contemporary art museum doesn't necessarily fit what should be the format of an encyclopedic one.
Meanwhile, Govan is apparently interested in taking over MOCA and remains committed to a satellite location, which - at best - will work like the Watts Towers. Then there are loans of the permanent collection that LACMA is supposed to give to the new art museum in Vegas.