Eli Broad's Pet Project

The Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, colloquially know as BCAM, officially opens to the public on Saturday with a free weekend sponsored by Target, the upscale big-box retailer that was similarly civic-spirited when the New Museum debuted on the Bowery in December. But LACMA members can sneak a peak at one of the most hotly anticipated unveilings of the year all this week, and there was a press preview last Thursday, so, naturally, there's already been a deluge of opinions directed towards Eli Broad's pet project. Bloomberg's architecture critic drew up an out-and-out manifesto against Renzo Piano, the architect of the BCAM building, last Wednesday. With Piano buildings from coast to coast, the architect "has ridden the U.S. museum-building boom," he says. "It's time for timid trustees to give Renzo a rest." The next day, the Los Angeles Times published a review of the building's contents. The art critic chides that "mostly the exhibition looks expensive. Really, really expensive." He continues:

Of 176 works on three floors, 139 are by artist who have shown with the same gallery — Gagosian, commonly considered today's leading commercial powerhouse. That's nearly 80%. BCAM turns out to be GCAM. Such a narrow vision feels insecure, more investment deal than adventure.

The New York Times took on the elephant in the room — Eli Broad's post-New Year's announcement that he wouldn't be donating his collection of more than 2,000 works of art to LACMA — in Sunday's edition. What we learn from this reporter is that Broad does not run the museum — " 'He has no more control than the other 45 people sitting around the table at the board meeting,'" according to Michael Govan, and that Govan, himself, is "holding his own." There was a benefit for BCAM on Saturday night, a "Page Six" item in the New York Post tells us. Jeff Koons' Cracked Egg, a sculpture of, yes, a cracked egg that is owned by Broad was the inspiration for the evening. Wolfgang Puck whipped up a dessert resembling the artwork, and the orchestra that entertained guests wore Cracked Egg masks. Lest you interpret a cracked egg as a dark omen, LACMA's website clarifies: "BCAM Born" it reads next to an image of Koons' piece.

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