Why Eli Broad's Art Museum Belongs On Grand Avenue

Here is the opening of my Huffington Post column on Eli Broad starting negotiations with the Grand Avenue Committee to being his Foundation's Art Museum to Bunker Hill.

Will Eli Broad Join Jeffrey Deitch & MOCA on Grand Avenue?

After a cross-town game of musical chairs, the 2,000 piece – and still growing – Broad Art Foundation Collection may finally have the one site that makes the most sense for its new home.

The Grand Avenue Authority yesterday began negotiations with the Broad Art Foundation for parcel L, immediately south of Disney Hall and across Grand Avenue from the Museum of Contemporary Art.

This decision is a radical turnaround from little more than a year ago when even MOCA remaining on Grand Avenue was seen as unlikely by some until the Eli Broad led bailout stabilized its finances.

The current plan for the Foundation started when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was unable to fund its ambitious expansion/redesign and Broad stepped up to fund the first building of a more modest expansion.  This was seen as an indicator he planned on leaving his art collections to LACMA. 

But Broad soon appeared to realize no matter how much space was added, the majority of the collection would still remain in storage.   He also appeared to understand no existing museum could realistically spend the time, money or resources for a single part of its collection to be on loan around the world when any existing museum has so many prior commitments and often-competing constituencies. 

The solution was for the Broad Art Foundation collection to remain an independent entity in a new building large enough to display a significant part of the collection and to also provide the Foundation with an ample (200 million dollar) endowment to fund its study, preservation and touring.

Then, to honor the foundation’s commitment to Los Angeles, it has been stated that LACMA and MOCA would have first call on borrowing any works of art they wished to display from the Foundation and that the other parts of the collection would be shown at the Foundation’s building on a rotating basis when they are not on loan.  

(the rest of the article is at the above link)