An old stereotype says that Hollywood is not hostile to Los Angeles art museums, just indifferent. So call it at least unconventional for a new museum building to open with a prominently displayed painting by a movie director currently nominated for an Academy Award.
Julian Schnabel has directed three first-rate movies since 1996, culminating in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." But since he exploded onto the New York art scene 17 years before making his first film, he's been a terribly erratic painter. Schnabel's monumental agglomeration of broken dishes slathered with paint, "The Walk Home" (1984-85), is among his better works, and it's installed on the second floor at the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. BCAM opens to the general public Feb. 16, with previews starting today, as the seventh building on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, February 16, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 54 words Type of Material: Correction
Broad exhibition: An art review of the exhibition at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in Section A on Feb. 7 stated that Damien Hirst's "Away From the Flock," seen in the show, was purchased at auction in 2006. An earlier edition of that artwork, purchased privately in 2004, is on display at the museum.
This Oscar-meets-art-museum aberration turns out to be one of the few unconventional features of BCAM, a boxy travertine barn designed by Italy's Renzo Piano, today's favorite architect for American art museum trustees. Seven Piano-designed museums have already opened or will soon, and he was recently awarded the commission to expand Louis Kahn's iconic Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Like Schnabel, the architect is an establishment art world celebrity.
Old-guard star power characterizes the inaugural BCAM show, largely composed of loans from the private and foundation collections of Eli and Edythe Broad. (LACMA owns just 15 of the 176 displayed works.) Yes, there's a lot of great material. How could there not be, given stellar examples by an artist roster that includes John Baldessari, Mike Kelley, Charles Ray, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol?
Yet, mostly the exhibition just looks expensive. Really, really expensive. In deciding what to exhibit, art museums everywhere now strongly favor wealthy collectors over artists and art professionals, and slashed government spending at every level (except defense) keeps contemporary cultural institutions hostage to private interests. Ours is an era of supply-side aesthetics, trickling down on the public. BCAM's loan-show debut is emblematic of the economic elitism humming loudly this presidential election year.
The show has three focal points. First is 1960s Pop art, with roots in Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. (The thin Rauschenberg holdings are bolstered by critical loans from New York's Sonnabend Collection.) Next are 1980s Neo-Expressionist paintings and works from related movements, as well as precursors.
