[category]
[title]
In the works for well over a decade and under construction since 2020, the David Geffen Galleries, a single-building replacement for LACMA’s eastern campus, will finally welcome museumgoers this spring, starting with two weeks of previews.
LACMA announced on Thursday that its amoeba-shaped structure will host a ribbon-cutting celebration on April 19. That’ll kick off two weeks of previews (Apr 19–May 3) for members and donors, including a free day (May 3) for NexGenLA, the museum’s free youth membership program for L.A. County residents 17 years and younger. Finally, access for the general public starts on May 4. Reservations for all of those groups are available now; museum tickets for the general public cost $30, or $25 for county residents.
And if all goes according to plan, Metro’s D Line expansion should be operational by the end of the winter—meaning you can take the subway from Downtown L.A. or as far west as the edge of Beverly Hills to a new station just across the street, next to the Petersen Automotive Museum.
On top of the preview days, the museum will hold a series of sunset receptions for members, starting with its most elite tiers on April 18 and 19; individual ($90) and dual ($150) members will receive invites for May 1 and 2. In addition, the building’s architect, Peter Zumthor, will sit down for a conversation with LACMA director and CEO Michael Govan. Slated for the evening of April 22, the talk ($10) will take place on the East West Bank Commons, a new outdoor space nestled along the northern edge of the new building.
The David Geffen Galleries, a single-floor span of galleries that appears to float above Wilshire Boulevard, will also sport various amenities on the ground floor: a restaurant, cafe, store and education center on its northern half, as well as a wine bar and theater on the south side of the street. Only the store and cafe will be available at opening, with the W.M. Keck Education Center set to debut on May 3; LACMA says the rest of the ground-floor features will open in phases.
As for the art, LACMA also teased some details about its inaugural installation. The museum says the 110,000-square-foot space is designed to hold between 2,500 and 3,000 objects, and it’ll debut with a mix of the museum’s returning favorites—including Georges de La Tour’s The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame (1640), Henri Matisse’s La Gerbe (1953) and Antonio de Arellano and Manuel de Arellano’s Virgin of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe) (1691)—as well as recent acquisitions—Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) and Vincent van Gogh’s Tarascon Stagecoach (1888)—plus commissions by Todd Gray, Lauren Halsey, Sarah Rosalena, Do Ho Suh and Diana Thater.
The building has invited plenty of strong opinions over the years on its design and square footage, but in just a couple of months we’ll all be able to weigh in on what it’s actually like to see art here. I was able to step inside the empty galleries over the summer for a one-of-a-kind performance from Kamasi Washington; the elevated views were dreamy though the all-concrete-everywhere look made navigation a bit dizzying—granted, that was with zero artwork on the walls.