New Museum in LA: Petersen Automotive Museum

exterior view of the new Petersen Automotive Museum
exterior view of the new Petersen Automotive Museum

The Petersen Automotive Museum first opened in 1994 in a former department store building at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax, across the street from LACMA and the forthcoming Academy Museum. It is one of the largest automotive museums in the world with a collection of more than 300 vehicles and other objects relating to the history of automobiles. Last summer, the Petersen announced a capital project to redesign its building to mark its 20th anniversary in 2014.

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New Museum in LA: The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

exterior view of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
exterior view of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

At the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax, on the southwestern edge of LACMA’s campus, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is constructing the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The project is led by Renzo Piano – the starchitect of LACMA’s adjacent Broad and Resnick pavilions – and will include a renovation of the landmarked May Company Building.

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New Museum in LA: LACMA

Chris Burden, Urban Light, installation view, LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the Western United States with more than 120,000 works in its permanent collection and more than 1 million visitors annually. Its collection is encyclopedic, its programs are exemplary, and its leadership is solid, but LACMA’s mid-Wilshire campus is a hot mess.

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New Museum in LA: The Broad

exterior view of The Broad, image via Diller Scofidio + Renfro
exterior view of The Broad, image via Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Eli Broad has been a primary benefactor of the LA art world for decades. He was the founding chairman of MOCA in 1979 and is a lifetime trustee. In 2008, The Broad Foundation gave MOCA a $30 million bailout after its endowment had been depleted. Broad is also a lifetime trustee at LACMA, where The Broad Foundation gave $60 million for the Renzo Piano-designed Broad Contemporary Art Museum building. In total, the Broads have given over $800 million to LA’s art institutions.

Simultaneously, the Broads and The Broad Art Foundation have developed a combined art collection of nearly 2,000 important modern and contemporary works. So, Eli Broad is building a new museum.

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New Museums in LA

Los Angeles skyline

Los Angeles. We use superlatives to describe its population, economy, climate, and traffic, and its museums are no exception. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the largest in the Western United States. The Museum of Contemporary Art has one of the world’s most important collections of post-war art. The J. Paul Getty Trust is the world’s wealthiest art institution. LA has an impressive list of museums. Some have plans to expand, and there are a few entirely new ones in the works. Our next series of posts will provide an overview of notable museum projects in LA.

Related posts:
New Museum in LA: The Broad
New Museum in LA: LACMA
New Museum in LA: The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
New Museum in LA: The Petersen Automotive Museum



Le Lustre Gabriel at the Château de Versailles

Le Lustre Gabriel at the Château de Versailles, installation view, image © Studio Bouroullec
Le Lustre Gabriel at the Château de Versailles, installation view, image © Studio Bouroullec

The Gabriel Staircase, at the entrance to the Grand Apartments at the Château de Versailles, was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1772 after the Petit Trianon and the Royal Opera at the palace. Completion of the staircase was delayed from the Revolution – until 1985 – and the monumental space gained a contemporary focal point in 2013.

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Henry Moore

Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1956; bronze, edition 3/7; Palm Springs Art Museum; photo © codylee.co
Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1956; bronze, edition 3/7; Palm Springs Art Museum; photo © codylee.co

“The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”



Maurizio Cattelan’s La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour)

Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960), La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour), installation view, wax, clothing, polyester resin with metallic powder, volcanic rock, carpet, glass, dimensions variable
Maurizio Cattelan, La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour), 1999; wax, clothing, polyester resin with metallic powder, volcanic rock, carpet, glass, dimensions variable; image via Christie’s

Maurizio Cattelan’s installation of La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour) is a life-sized effigy of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteor. First exhibited in 1999 at the Kunsthalle Basel, La Nona Ora was featured at the Royal Academy in London in 2000, and also at the Zacheta Gallery of Contemporary Art in Warsaw. Christie’s sold the piece in 2001 for $886,000, and a second version was auctioned by Phillips, de Pury & Company in 2004 for $3 million.

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