Museum prospects list grows

WHO knows what artworks Eli Broad will lend to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the opening of the $50-million building he will erect there? No one, including Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation. LACMA’s new showplace, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, isn’t expected to open until late 2007, and plans for the inaugural exhibition are in development, Heyler says. But the list of contenders grew considerably in 2005.

The foundation, which collects selected artists’ work in depth, has added pieces by 13 artists, including five who are new to the collection: American painter John Currin, South African filmmaker William Kentridge, German painter Neo Rauch, British painter Jenny Saville and German photographer Thomas Struth.

“These are all artists we plan to follow,” Heyler says.

The foundation also boosted its holdings of works by L.A. artists last year. At the Venice Biennale -- where Edward Ruscha represented the U.S. with “The Course of Empire,” a gimlet-eyed view of progress, featuring paintings of recycled industrial buildings -- Broad snagged a pair of canvases. “Blue Collar Tech-Chem,” a 1992 work, and “The Old Tech Chem Building,” made in 2003, portray the same building at different stages of its evolution. At “Day Is Done,” a massive exhibition by Mike Kelley at the Gagosian Gallery in New York’s Chelsea district, Broad bought “Gym Interior,” a mixed-media installation with three video performances projected in a stage-like setting.

Among recent purchases from New York artists, Broad acquired two polychromed metal sculptures by Jeff Koons, “Caterpillar Ladder” and “Chainlink Fence,” bringing the foundation’s Koons holding to 18 works. Broad also bought 25 additional photographs by Cindy Sherman, expanding the foundation’s collection to 115 pieces.

-- Suzanne Muchnic