Lobster?

I had the opportunity to go to the new Broad building, or BCAM, at the LA County Museum of Art on Friday. Eli Broad is a major collector of Modern Art, and has used his considerable wealth to build a new wing at LACMA to offer his collection to the larger public. Charles Ray's life-size version of a toy firetruck sets the tone, alongside a Jeff Koon's piece, Tulips, which is fantastic. BCAM is three floors of contemporary art, and there are basically three threads that frame the collection--60s Pop Art, 80s Neo-Expressionism, and finally the sort of Post-movement era of the last fifteen-twenty years. These three strands of contemporary art are not laid out in a linear way, it seems more like influences and similarities dictated, and they will hopefully revisit some of the choices because it felt a little scattered at times.

The top floor was the most perhaps the most impressive to me, in terms of layout especially--the building is great. There is nothing particulary unexpected, it is a collection rather than an exhibition--but it's an amazing collection of some of the most important pieces of late 20th century and early 21st century art.A small section of Warhol's--mostly black and white silk-screen works--and a massive camouflage piece that he produced the year before he died. Much of the rest of the floor is devoted to Jeff Koons--who I love more each time I see his stuff--he is easy to dismiss form many--he doesn't 'paint' even touch his own work, and yet there is a trade-mark style and approach to all he does whther it be on canvas or in stainless steel. He mines the lowest levels of pop detritus--inflatable toys, magazines, pornography, kitsch statuary, and makes grand statements about contemporary culture by turing these artifacts into major pieces of conceptual art. The 'Lobster' painting highlights his amazing ability to transform something created in one technology (digital collage) into another (oils), the finished work has a sheen just like a magazine page print. John Baldessari, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Robert Raushenberg, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, Julian Schnabel, Damien Hirst, Leon Golub, Roy Lichtenstein, they're all there..someone has a big chequebook.
     There is a huge elevator, in the middle of the building (which apparently is a love/hate thing for many, I love the building and the elevator), the shaft of which features a huge work by Barbara Kruger--I like her sloganeering, even though it has a sort of dated familiarity now, but that's my problem, not hers.
    The real deal about the this exhibit, has more to do with contemporary art in general than anything else. Up until now MOCA has been LA's default contemporary art museum, all that changes with the opening of BCAM--I don't think MOCA should lose any sleep, as I said, this is a collection, not an exhibit, and I don't even think that it is a permanent gift--so where it all goes from here is up for grabs.
     Oh, I should mention that the ground floor features nothing but two huge Richard Serra sculptures--they are contemplative, meditative, disorienting, and beautiful--the colour of the rust iron is so rich, and combined with the trippy feeling the curved and twisted metal creates as you move in and around the pieces, it offers a nice contrast to the  other two floors of wild colour and almost manic tor of the world of contemporary art. A great way to spend part of the day--a true gift for me at the end of a long week.