Museum report·Los Angeles
164 Works Bound for Paris as The Broad Mounts Its Largest-Ever Show Outside Los Angeles
The Broad will send 164 works to the Fondation Louis Vuitton for "The Broad Collection — Los Angeles in Paris" (April 21–August 30, 2027), the biggest presentation of its collection ever staged outside LA, timed to the most intensive phase of its $100M downtown expansion. A two-year partnership with Mark Bradford's Art + Practice in Leimert Park keeps works circulating locally.
The Broad will move a substantial portion of its holdings across the Atlantic. The Los Angeles museum announced on October 20 that 164 works from its collection will travel to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, where they will form the largest exhibition of the Broad's art ever mounted outside its home city. Titled "The Broad Collection — Los Angeles in Paris," the show runs April 21 through August 30, 2027 and will occupy nearly the entirety of the foundation's Frank Gehry-designed building.
The selection spans American postwar and contemporary art, with works by 51 artists including Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. One of Kusama's Infinity Mirror Rooms will make the trip — though not the mirror room that anchors the Broad's own third floor. The show also highlights newer Los Angeles voices, among them Sayre Gomez, Lauren Halsey, Patrick Martinez and Laura Owens, alongside figures such as William Kentridge, Mark Bradford, Glenn Ligon and Cindy Sherman. A fully illustrated catalogue reproducing every work on view will accompany the exhibition.
The Paris engagement coincides with the most intensive phase of construction on the Broad's $100 million expansion in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the architects of the original 2015 museum, the project will add 55,000 square feet and 70 percent more gallery space, with opening targeted ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics. The museum will remain open during construction, though its third floor will close entirely at some point late next year; a new gallery converted from storage is set to open later this year as an early preview.
Founding director Joanne Heyler, who announced the exhibition at an event in Paris, framed the loan as a continuation of the collection's origins: before it had a museum, the Broad holdings circulated as a lending library for 30 years. The museum has also entered a two-year partnership with Art + Practice, Mark Bradford's nonprofit arts and education foundation in Leimert Park, to share works and resources locally while the expansion is built.
