While the Purple Line subway promises to define the future of transportation by traveling under Wilshire Boulevard, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is planning its future with a dramatic reconfiguration reaching above the Miracle Mile.

LACMA’s transformational design features
a translucent elevated main exhibit space. (photo courtesy of Atelier Peter Zumthor)

The museum has embarked on a bold project by noted architect Peter Zumthor that will change the way people view and experience art while also transforming the local landscape. A 387,500-sqaure-foot mostly translucent structure will replace three of LACMA’s older buildings, spanning Wilshire Boulevard and connecting with a space to the south. Semi-transparent pavilions will support a translucent main exhibition space across Wilshire. The project will free up space around the existing museum campus for outdoor art and special programming. Gardens, plazas and educational spaces will come to life with exhibits, music and performance art. The goal is to make LACMA more accessible to visitors and create new ways to understand and appreciate the museum’s vast collection and the cultures they represent.

“With this project, we have an opportunity to create an accessible museum experience, and a completely new way to understand the arts and culture of the past, the present, and the future,” LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan said. “The new building will span Wilshire Boulevard and transform the relationship between LACMA and the surrounding park area. At the same time, three and a half acres of new public outdoor space will be opened up, permitting more areas for landscape and outdoor artworks while respecting the Natural History Museum La Brea Tar Pits & Museum and better integrating with LACMA’s West Campus and the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The new design itself makes LACMA a more transparent and integrated experience, a symbol of Los Angeles’ emergence as one of the truly great art capitals of the world.”

The project is currently undergoing an environmental impact report to be completed by the end of the year, and there are hints some changes may eventually occur with the final designs.

“We are tweaking things to make them more efficient,” said Miranda Carrol, LACMA’s senior director of communications. “But there will still be this sort of serpentine shape spanning across to the other side.”

Demolition of the Ahmanson, Hammer and Art of the Americas buildings, and the Leo S. Bing Center, is planned for fall 2019, when the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is anticipated to open next door. LACMA plans to reopen in 2023, in concert with the opening of the Purple Line’s Wilshire/Fairfax subway station, which will be just steps away from the museum’s southern tip.

LACMA’s upcoming “Robert Rauschenberg: The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece” exhibit includes the artist’smonumental work consisting of 190 panels. (photo courtesy of LACMA)

While the project unfolds, LACMA’s western campus will remain open with the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the Resnick Pavilion, where the museum plans to house most of the collection and exhibitions. LACMA will also bring its art to new parts of the city and existing sites in South Los Angeles and the Charles White Elementary School Gallery near MacArthur Park.

“There will always be something going on at LACMA,” Carroll said. “We have outside space and we are hoping to expand to other satellite campuses. We are expanding our partnerships to have more on site elsewhere.”

While the designs of the future unfold, LACMA is also planning for the present, with an exciting line-up of exhibitions and special programming this fall. Currently on view is “3D: Double Vision,” the first American exhibition to survey 3-D art. Dating from 1838 to the present, the works show viewers new ways to see and live the 3-D experience.

Upcoming is “Robert Rauschenberg: The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece,” opening on Oct. 28 and featuring his monumental work by the same name created over 17 years. The piece is composed of 190 panels that when combined stretch a quarter mile. The “1/4 Mile” showcases the diversity of Rauschenberg’s practice in different mediums, and it will be the first time the work is displayed in its entirety.

Dance fans will also experience a moving tribute with “Merce Cunningham, Clouds and Screens” opening on Oct. 28. The exhibit pays tribute to the legendary choreographer Cunningham and features many works including Andy Warhol’s “Silver Clouds” and Charles Atlas’ “MC9” (short for “Merce Cunningham to the ninth power”), with excerpts from 21 dances for videos Atlas made with Cunningham.

The openings continue in November with “Outliers and American Vanguard Art,” an exploration of a period in American art history when avant-garde artists and outsiders intersected. In December, the museum welcomes “The Jeweled Isle: Art from Sri Lanka,” with 250 works spanning nearly two millennia of Sri Lankan history.

The experience at LACMA continues with special exhibits, as visitors enjoy thousands of pieces from the permanent collection and participate in gallery tours, lectures and hands-on courses. Music ranges from concerts to intimate small performances, and film screenings are held regularly. And no visit to LACMA is complete without snapping a photo at “Urban Light,” artist Chris Burden’s tribute to vintage streetlights.

LACMA will always remain a destination for art lovers from around the world, and the museum’s plans for transformation will ensure it remain so for generations to come. Although big changes are just around the corner, LACMA’s future as one of the world’s premier arts and cultural destinations has already been secured.

LACMA acquires Ruth Asawa sculpture

photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

LACMA recently acquired artist Ruth Asawa’s 1954 “Untitled” hanging sculpture from an anonymous donor during the museum’s 32nd annual Collectors Committee fundraiser.

Described by the artist as “open hyperbola forms that penetrate each other,” the piece redefines the notion of sculpture as solid form.

It was inspired by Asawa’s 1947 trip to Toluca, Mexico, where she saw baskets being made from a mesh of interlocking wire loops. Asawa adapted the technique and became well known for creating transparent looped-wire sculptures that transform ordinary materials into poetic works of art.