AO Art Observed™

Eli Broad, Billionaire Philanthropist and Art Collector, via LA Times

In an apparent reversal from his statements earlier this year, billionaire philanthropist and patron of the arts Eli Broad is now opening a 25,000 square foot museum in the new headquarters for his eponymous foundation, the Broad Art Foundation.  This news comes just nine months after the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened the 60,000 square foot Broad Contemporary Art Museum, built through $56 million dollars provided by Mr. Broad, proprietor of a 2,000 piece collection of post-war art.  Jean Michel Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Damien Hirst figure among the many seminal artists whose works are owned by the foundation.  Eli Broad had been outspokenly calling the art market bubble for some time now and recent auction performance in the past month or two has proved him to be somewhat prescient.   Broad has felt that the market is returning to normal levels perhaps as he has recently been reinvigorating purchasing activity.  Mr. Broad’s most recent acquisitions include: Bantam by Robert Rauschenberg ($2.6 million), Wishing Well by Jeff Koons ($2.2 million), and Desire by Ed Ruscha ($2.4 million), all acquired at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on November 11th (as covered by AO here).

The new facility would include the proposed museum, administrative headquarters for his organization, and storage for the pieces of his collection that aren’t on loan to museums. ”We want a new headquarters, a space to have works that are not on loan to others at any given moment available for study by curators and scholars,” the foundation’s spokeswoman said in an article published in Bloomberg.  Broad has expressed that he would like the new headquarters to open within 3 years.

Gensler has been designated as the architect and consultant on the project, with a site in Beverly Hills and two other undisclosed locations under review. The Beverly Hills location would be at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, a few miles away from the LACMA museum that bears his name. Some observers question whether the new museum would introduce too much competition to existing contemporary arts venues, especially the Broad Museum at LACMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), where Broad was a founding trustee. MoCA especially is in a very fragile position: the museum is in a severe fiscal crisis after suffering huge losses to its endowment in the recent market downturn.  Broad has announced a plan to provide $30 million to MoCA over several years to help keep the museum from closing.

The Broad Art Foundation
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Eli Broad Plans Another Art Space [New York Times]
Broad Decides to Build His Own Museum [New York Times]
Billionaire Broad Proposes Beverly Hills Art Museum [Bloomberg]
Eli Broad’s Museum to Keep Art Out of `Basement’ [Bloomberg]
Eli Broad’s art collection needs a home, so he’ll build it [LA Times]
MOCA faces serious financial problems [LA Times]
Saving MOCA: Eli Broad offers $30 million to MOCA in Op-Ed [LA Times]
Eli Broad to Build Museum in Los Angeles [ArtForum]

Untitled (2003) by Cy Twombly, via Broad Art Foundation

Recently purchased by Eli Broad, Wishing Well by Jeff Koons, via Sotheby’s

Recently purchased by Eli Broad, Desire by Ed Ruscha, via Sotheby’s

Interior with African Mask by Roy Lichtenstein, via Broad Art Foundation

Michael Jackson and Bubbles by Jeff Koons, via Broad Art Foundation

Rabbit by Jeff Koons, via Broad Art Foundation

I…I’m Sorry by Roy Lichtenstein, via Broad Art Foundation

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Art News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.