The new Geffen Galleries at LACMA, or The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is a controversial new landmark that for some is an amorphous eyesore funded by billionaires. For others, it’s an affirmation that Los Angeles is an international art hub for great artists, museums, and serious collectors.
Whether you love or hate it, it’s a memorable experience that you won’t soon forget. LACMA is a museum I’ve been going to since the mid 1960s when I first saw Ed Kienholz’s piece, Back Seat Dodge ‘38.
Southern California already was, but is quickly becoming the go to destination (along with New York City) for seeing the best art in the United States. The new Geffen Galleries, although I don’t love every aspect of it, cements that legacy.
I’m Robert L. Pincus, an art critic and writer based in San Diego. I served as the art critic of The San Diego Union-Tribune for 25 years, and currently teach at California State University, Long Beach and the University of San Diego. I have a Ph.D. in Art History & English from the University of Southern California.
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Geffen Galleries @ LACMA
Hi, I’m Bob and this is Art with Bob Pincus. I’m standing in front of the new Geffen Galleries of the LA County Museum of Art, called that because the biggest donor obviously is David Geffen. The building itself when your outside, I think it has quite a pleasing sort of look to it. I think it’s the gentle curves of it, sort of like a, it reminds me of those biomorphic forms, you know, sort of organic forms you’d see in early mid-20th century painting. Obviously it makes it on a much grander scale, but it doesn’t have a scale which overpowers the street.
You know, I thought about the idea that it was going to go over Wilshire Boulevard and I thought that could be really, you know, kind of grandiose, but it doesn’t look grandiose. It sort of looks, the height of it is just about right. So I don’t even think that people on Wilshire are that distracted by it.
And I like the idea that it’s not, there’s really not much color to the building. The idea of sort of the gray and the concrete.
I think having a color of any kind more than that would probably date it. And it has kind of a nice way of getting in through that staircase up to the building. I think that’s a very nice sort of way of entering.
What’s unusual about this museum from any museum I’ve ever been to, in terms of a museum that has a encyclopedic style collection, is the idea that you’re on one level the whole time.
it’s not organized the way a traditional museum is organized. That was a big deal I think for what they wanted to do. The idea is don’t do it historically, do it geographically. So you have these ideas of, you have Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, as sort of like an organizing idea. Although, truthfully, when you’re wandering through, you do lose track of these oceans.
Since it’s not chronological and it’s thematic, you have contemporary stuff with historical stuff. And so it’s meant to sort of, be able to reorganize your brain just for looking at whatever you want to look at.
There’s problems with the space, I think, in the sense that you have so many windows and so much street view, it allows a lot of light in. And so, for example, when you get to one of the showcase pieces, the Francis Bacon triptych, three panels of Lucien Freud from 1969.
That’s a big deal piece because Elaine Wynn apparently bought it at auction for like $142 million with the idea it’ll be gifted to the museum when she passes away. But it’s at the museum already. You cannot get it lit in a way that it doesn’t have reflection from the windows. It’s not possible. It’s not awful, but it is a little distracting for a big piece like that.
I don’t think it’s probably as good as Michael Govan thinks it is or wants it to be, but it’s better than a lot of the really negative reviews.
I certainly thought, for example, like the Egyptian area was pretty effective, where you have the ancient art. And then you have an untitled Sphinx piece by contemporary artist, Lauren Halsey, well-known Los Angeles artist. And the pictographic and text on it is really the history of South Central LA
The building came in for a lot of criticism. I’m talking about going back to 2018, ’19, I believe when my friend, the LA Times art critic, Chris Knight, wrote negative pieces about how terrible it was it was going to have cast concrete walls. That’s not going to be good for showing art. It’s going to be difficult to install.
There were some other architecture reviews that have come through that are not terribly positive about it. My impression is, it’s not a stark as the negative reviews say. It’s more pleasing to be inside it than I would have thought from what I read ahead of time. So you can’t always trust the critics, like me.
My feeling is most people will feel like it’s a, if they don’t think it’s a totally positive experience, they’re going to feel like it’s a memorable experience because the memorable nature of walking through a building like that and wandering.
That is one idea that has been sort of promoted, the idea you’ll wander through the space rather than have deliberate, like I’m going to go see this, x, y, or z.
As you’re walking through the space, you will get to galleries where there’s one kind of art organized in a much more traditional way. For example, they have a great collection of Dutch paintings given by Edward Carter, who was the first board president of the museum. And I think it was his second wife, Hannah. They gave this collection to the museum. And it has really good Dutch paintings, landscape, still life, et cetera. And that’s really much more like a traditional gallery.
And the same can be said of a gift from Jerrold Perenchio. He gave a modern collection. By modern, I mean late 19th century through the mid 20th century. So there’s a really good Picasso painting, small one, woman in a flowered hat. There’s a really good Cezanne painting. That is much more traditional. So you have these pockets of tradition within the kind of atraditional organization of the collection.
My advice to anybody going through a first time, wander through, see what interests you. A lot of people who don’t spend a tremendous amount of time in museums probably don’t care that it’s organized historically. Now, people who do spend a lot of time in museums, you’ll find it a little disorienting. But maybe disorienting in a good way; it’s something different.
I think it still needs to be fine-tuned, this idea of the thematic thing. It seems to have some ragged moments. Hey, you know, it’s a first installation. I’m standing in front of the new Geffen Galleries of the LA County Museum of Art, thanks for watching.
Videos on art and art history on YouTube @ArtWithBobPincus
What art appears in the video?
Inside The Geffen Galleries at LACMA | A New Landmark for Los Angeles?
Building Credits
The David Geffen Galleries, 2026
Architect: Peter Zumthor (Switzerland, b. 1943)
Architectural concrete
Polished concrete terrazzo with embedded seashell
Floor-to-ceiling curvilinear glass
Keim mineral nano silica-based pigments in select galleries
Curtains: LACMA x NUNO Sputtered
Reiki Sudo (Japan, b. 1953)
Chrome Matte, 2025
Chrome Gloss, 2026
Polyester plain weave (organza), calendered
Sputter-plated with chrome particles
Outdoor Artworks
Split-Rocker, 2025
Jeff Koons (United States, b. 1955)
Stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, internal irrigation system, and live flowering plants; 446 ⅞ x 483 ⅛ x 427 ⅝ inches
Tlaili, 2025
Pedro Reyes (Mexico, b. 1972)
Volcanic Stone; 215 ⅜ x 155 ½ x 80 ¾ inches
Selected Artworks Featured
Pacific Ocean
Flower Day, 1925
Diego Rivera (Mexico, 1886-1957)
Harvest of the Sea, 2023
Scherezade Garcia (Dominican Republic b. 1966)
Fall, 2006
Wendy Red Star (United States, b. 1981)
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941
Ansel Adams (United States, 1902-1984)
. . . we are the mountain, 2019
rafa esparza (United States, b. 1981)
Avanti, designed 1961, manufactured 1963
Raymond Loewy (France, 1893-1986)
The Great Wave off Kanagawa,
from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830-31
Katsushika Hokusai (Japan, 1760-1849)
Rocks amid Crashing Waves, c. 1810
Yamaato Kakurei (Japan, active c. 1790-1820)
Indian Ocean
Ocean Series, 2009-10
Andreas Gursky (Germany, b. 1955)
Chaopao (Man’s Formal Court Robe), 18th century
China, Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Region
Jagyeong Hall, Gyeongbak Palace, 2026
Do Ho Suh (Korea, b. 1962, active United Kingdom
Vikatonarva, 2024
Manjunath Kamath (India, b. 1972)
Ardabil Carpet, AH 946/1539-40 CE
Iran, attributed to Tabriz
Maqsud Kashani (Iran, active 16th century)
Mediterranean Sea
Untitled, 2026 [Two pieces]
Lauren Halsey, (United States, b. 1987)
Cast Matrix Dryve with stain
The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, c. 1635-37
Georges de la Tour (Vic-sur-Seille, 1593-1652)
Oil on canvas
Bouquet of Flowers in an Urn, 1724
Jan van Huysum (Northern Netherlands, 1682-1749)
Oil on wood panel
Portrait of Peter Dircksz, Tjarck, c. 1635-38
Frans Hals (Antwerp [Belgium] 1582/83-1666)
Oil on canvas
Atlantic Ocean
Octavia’s Gaze, 2025
Todd Gray (United States, b. 1954)
Three Studies of Lucien Freud, 1969
Francis Bacon (Ireland, 1909-1992, active England)
Goddesses (Earth, Air, Ocean, Water), 2009
Dora de Larios (United States, 1933-2018)
Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis, 1890
John Singer Sargent (Italy, 1856-1925, Active France, England, United States)
The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil, 1881
Claude Monet (France, 1840-1926)
Fireplace Surround from Patrick J. King House, Chicago, 1901
George Washington Maher (United States, 1864-1926)
Oak, glass, and enamel
Only Time Will Tell Clock, 2011-13
Frank E. Cummings III (United States, b. 1938)
Fading Scroll, 2007
El Anatsui (Ghana, b. 1944, active Nigeria)
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