The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA

The city’s premier showcase for post-war art, MOCA started life in a humongous bus barn on the edge of Little Tokyo. That’s now the Geffen Contemporary—its spacious, raw interior designed by Frank Gehry in the 1980s—considered by some to be one of his gutsiest spaces. When MOCA’s main building, designed by Japan’s Arata Isozaki, was completed a block from the Civic Center on Grand Avenue, the museum was able simultaneously to mount ambitious survey exhibitions and to showcase items from its fine permanent collection, which includes pieces by Rauschenberg, Rothko, Twombly, Mondrian and Pollock. MOCA stages the more mainstream exhibits (although such terms are relative; “mainstream” here means the likes of Louise Bourgeois), leaving the Geffen Contemporary to concentrate on more esoteric artists and stage more immersive shows.