Personal Reflections About My Visit to Los Angeles' The Broad Museum

I chose to visit The Broad museum in downtown Los Angeles for my assignment. According to the website, The Broad was founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad who financed the building and the artworks in it. It reportedly cost one hundred and forty million dollars. The first thing that caught my eye was the exterior of the building.

From afar it looked like the exterior was made with some type of hard white plastic but when I got closer, I realized that it was actually made with brick. The whole design was mesmerizing to me. The Broad was designed by the architect firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, founded by two American architects, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio who are the founders and are actually married. The Museum officially opened its doors in September of 2015 and it contains over two thousand works of art.

When I walked into The Broad I was ushered to the third floor of the building where a dozen pieces of art were on display. The first art the visitor sees when they get up to the third floor is Jeff Koons’ Tulips. It is right in front of you and the size makes it hard to miss.

The artwork that really caught my attention was African’t by Kara walker. There was a whole room dedicated to Walker’s works like may of the artists in The Broad but African’t was massive. It is a cut paper on wall piece. The almost life-sized piece took up two walls. African’t, created in 1996 when walker was just 27 years old embodies all the negative stereotypes of the African American People. It also depicts sex and violence. The name itself is a nickname that plays on the stereotype that black people are lazy. There are at least ten people on the wall all engaged in different activities. I couldn’t personally make out what all the images represent. There is a person roasting over fire next to a woman pooping and vomiting bones which plays on the stereotype during slavery that black people were cannibals. There is another image of a woman playing with monkeys that she was said to have resembled. There is also another image of a black woman being raped by a white man while his wife watches from afar and does nothing. I think Walker’s artworks were meant to be thought provoking. She addresses the history of slavery and racism in her works without leaving anything behind.

The second artwork that I loved was by Kerry James Marshall. What got my attention was when I was looking at his paintings on display, all three of them were untitled. One of them was of a man wearing orange pants with a “genuine leather” belt while another was of a woman standing in front of her closet getting dressed. The last one was of two men admiring a painting. I loved that one because it reminded me of all the painting in a painting paintings we went over in this class like the self-portraits by Judith Leyster and Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun. Untitled was created in 2017 and is an acrylic on PVC painting. It pictures two men standing next to each other admiring another painting. One of the men in the painting is not really visible but the second seems like he was really taking in the painting and trying to find his own meaning to the painting just like I was when I was viewing the artworks in The Broad.

In conclusion, I don’t really recall the last time I visited a museum so I was excited to go as a requirement for this class. I was originally supposed to visit the Getty but they were closed on the day I wanted then I looked up The Broad and fell in love with the architectural design when I looked it up online. This experience was mesmerizing to me. Being able to view all these incredible artworks up close was invaluable and definitely makes me appreciate them more.