LOS ANGELES (AP) – Art museums in Los Angeles generally have pricey gift shops, haute fast-food cafeterias and – more often than not – billionaire Eli Broad’s name etched prominently on their list of supporters.
Now the property-developer-turned-philanthropist has plans for a freestanding museum in his name, which could be built in an emerging downtown cultural district formed largely with his backing.
A committee of state and local officials will vote Monday on whether to let Broad lease county-owned land on the city’s Grand Avenue for the $80-million to $100-million structure. The project is being cast as a possible boon to downtown Los Angeles’ ongoing cultural rebirth and has the support of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The new venue’s 35,000 square feet of gallery space would feature paintings, sculptures and photos from Broad’s 2,000-piece collection, which includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Salvador Dali and Joan Miro that are not currently on permanent public display.
“There’s clearly more art than there is gallery space,” said Karen Denne, a spokeswoman for Broad, who was not available for comment. “This creates additional gallery space, an additional public museum so that these works are accessible to as many people as possible.”
The Broad Art Foundation would also coordinate loans of its art works to other institutions, among other activities, from the planned 120,000-square-foot venue.
Denne said the 76-year-old, whose net worth was pegged this year by Forbes magazine at $5.7 billion, is waiting for the Grand Avenue Committee to hold its vote before deciding whether to build the arts venue downtown or in an alternate location in Santa Monica.
Broad has spoken favorably in past interviews about the downtown site beside the Walt Disney Concert Hall and across from the Museum of Contemporary Art – both of which he played a role in having built.
Under the deal to be considered Monday, the Broad Art Foundation would pay $7.7 million over the course of a 99-year-lease for the 2.5-acre parcel that was originally set aside as part of the stalled $3 billion shopping, hotel and condo complex known as the Grand Avenue project. The plan also obliges Broad to finance the museum’s construction and contribute $200 million toward its operation.
Broad has winnowed his choice of architects for the project to the office of Dutch designer Rem Koolhaas and New York-based Diller, Scofidio & Renfro.
Denne said Broad began considering the downtown spot at Villaraigosa’s urging.
“When I heard that Eli Broad was planning to build an art museum to house his world-renowned collection, the first thing I did was encourage him to build his museum in downtown Los Angeles,” the mayor said in a statement. “If sited here, the museum will be an important cornerstone of the Grand Avenue project and play a pivotal role in the cultural and artistic renaissance currently under way.”
Broad, who made his billions as co-founder of developer KB Home and through the sale of insurer SunAmerican, has already done much toward advancing the arts on Grand Avenue.
He was founding chairman of the Arata Isozaki-designed Museum of Contemporary Art in 1979, one of the earliest cultural venues to join the Music Center performing arts complex among the corporate high-rises coming to dominate Bunker Hill.
He pledged up to $15 million as part of a deal in 2008 to shore up the financially troubled museum’s finances and championed the selection of its current director, Jeffrey Deitch, previously a prominent art dealer and gallery owner in New York.
Broad was also instrumental in establishing and selecting architects for other Grand Avenue landmarks: the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall; a sleek Los Angeles Unified School District arts campus by Viennese designer Wolf Prix; and Our Lady of Angels Cathedral, by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo.
Off Grand Avenue, he made a $60 million gift to build and support the Renzo Piano-designed Broad Contemporary Art Museum on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s west Los Angeles campus, where some of the contemporary art collection already resides.
Other institutions bearing his name are the Eli and Edith Broad Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, to which he donated $23.2 million, and the Broad Stage at Santa Monica City College, which received $10 million.
“I think he’s one of the major art patrons nationally, not just in Southern California,” said Rochelle Steiner, dean of the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Fine Arts (named for a different Southern California billionaire). “Other cities think about, ‘Who could transform our city?’ Los Angeles has someone who actually is transforming the city.”
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AP-WS-08-23-10 0419EDT
