iThe BroadDowntown
Has the myth been shattered
Collection show on how media shapes history and memory, with Guadalupe Rosales, Hank Willis Thomas, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Warhol and Mickalene Thomas.
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Preview: written before the show opened
The show opens on a Los Angeles Times front page from May 1992, printed days after the Uprising and sealed behind a two-way mirror. LED lights change colour around it, and two headlines glow through: "Seeing Ourselves" and "Has the Myth Been Shattered?" You read them with your own reflection on top. Guadalupe Rosales made it in 2024, and the exhibition borrows its title.
Around it, in the ground-floor galleries, are works by 14 artists across six decades, all from The Broad's own collection and more than a dozen on view here for the first time. Many date from the 1980s and 1990s, when artists such as Barbara Kruger and Glenn Ligon were answering the newspapers and images of their day. Newer works mix archive material with the present.
The subject is heavy: the 1992 Uprising, police violence, civil rights. Entry is free with general admission (timed tickets recommended, or join the standby line), and Thursdays run until 8pm.
Editor's pick
It starts with Guadalupe Rosales's 1992 LA Times front page, set behind a two-way mirror under shifting lights. Fourteen artists, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon and Mickalene Thomas among them, pick at how the news turns into memory.
Look for
Guadalupe Rosales, Has the myth been shattered (2024)
Look for the 1992 Los Angeles Times front page behind a two-way mirror, its headlines glowing under color-shifting LED lights at the start of the show.
Hank Willis Thomas, Black Survival Guide (2018)
A 1968 pamphlet on first aid and police encounters printed on reflective vinyl; photographs of the National Guard occupying Wilmington appear only under a camera flash.
Mickalene Thomas, The Charnel House (Resist #5) (2021)
A rhinestone-studded canvas over three meters wide that refills Picasso's wartime Charnel House with archival Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter images and signs.
Leon Golub's Nelson Rockefeller portraits (1976)
Seven acrylic portraits of the former vice president, painted from photos spanning the 1940s to the 1970s, on view at The Broad for the first time.
Mark Tansey, Matrix (1993)
A monochrome canvas almost nine feet tall of an industrial conveyor system churning out printed matter, with one lone worker at its center.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
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Image credits
7
- Has the myth been shatteredCourtesy of The Broad
- Alexander Apóstol: Regime: Dramatis PersonaeCourtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Photo by Jeff McLane.
- In These Times: Recent Acquisitions at MOCACourtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
- Seasons in Cosmos: Works by Diana Shuiu WongCourtesy of Chinese American Museum
- The BroadLeviclancy / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)Benoît Prieur / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Chinese American MuseumVisitor7 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0