The Un-Private Collection: A New Museum for Los Angeles

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The Un-Private Collection: A New Museum for Los Angeles

Los Angeles is a city of renowned private collections that have become public museums: The Getty, the Hammer, the Norton Simon, The Huntington, and soon, The Broad. Consisting of over 2,000 artworks by established and emerging international artists, The Broad will add significantly to the contemporary art holdings on view to the Southern California public. Inge Reist will lead a discussion with the Broads and The Broad museum director Joanne Heyler about how their aesthetic tastes and social and political viewpoints have informed their collection as well as the decision to build a new museum as an investment in downtown’s Grand Avenue and the cultural life of Los Angeles.
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Eli Broad and Edythe Broad

Eli and Edythe Broad have built two of the most prominent collections of postwar and contemporary art worldwide: The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection and The Broad Art Foundation. The two collections together include nearly 2,000 works by more than 200 artists. Since 1984, The Broad Art Foundation has operated an active “lending library” of its extensive collection and will open a contemporary art museum in downtown Los Angeles in the fall 2014.

Joanne Heyler is the director/chief curator of The Broad Art Foundation. She has curated the Broad collections and directed the Foundation’s “lending library” program since 1995. Under Ms. Heyler’s direction, the Foundation’s collection has added over 60 artists, including in-depth representations of work by crucial postwar figures such as Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, as well as work by more recent figures like Damien Hirst, Sharon Lockhart, Kara Walker, and Mark Bradford. As an adviser to the Broads, Ms. Heyler is closely involved with the Broads’ philanthropic investments in the visual arts.

Inge Reist is the director of The Frick Collection's Center for the History of Collecting and the chief of Research Collections and Programs at the Frick Art Reference Library. She is the co-editor of Provenance: An Alternative Art History, and her essays on the history of collecting have been included in numerous publications. From 2005 to 2011, Reist served as the chairman of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History from 2005 to 2011. She currently serves on the editorial board of Art Documentation and the Art Advisory Board for EBSCO Publishing.