Visiting David Geffen Galleries—LACMA’s new home for its permanent collection showcasing 6,000 years of art from around the world—is a museum experience unlike any other. Crafted from architectural concrete and glass, the building’s organic form spans Wilshire Boulevard, a sculptural whole that embraces the neighborhood. Outside, its elevated gallery floor creates 3.5 acres of shaded public space below. Inside, visitors discover a revolutionary curatorial approach as diverse and open as Los Angeles itself as they roam airy terrace galleries with floor-to-ceiling windows, plaza-like courtyard galleries where stories converge, and intimate interior galleries that encourage contemplation.
Now open to everyone, the Geffen Galleries invite you to wander through indoor and outdoor spaces while you encounter beloved works of art, discover new favorites, and immerse yourself in a fresh take on the history of art. Before you book your tickets, here’s a primer on what to expect at L.A.’s newest landmark.
Visitors in the David Geffen Galleries with El Anatsui’s Fading Scroll, 2007, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Fowler Museum, UCLA, purchased jointly with funds provided by The Broad Art Foundation, Phil Berg, Mary and Robert Looker, and Margaret Pexton Murray, © El Anatsui, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Charles Powers
The Exhibition Level Is Inspired by Oceans and Seas
The galleries span a single elevated floor with no front or back, where you’ll move freely through spaces that connect and flow into one another. The inaugural display explores networks of exchange around bodies of water—Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific—creating unexpected visual and thematic connections across time and geography. Whether you ascend from the north or south entrance, some of the first things you’ll encounter are art and objects from the Ancient Americas, situating the museum in our region, before flowing into a nonhierarchical layout of more than 80 presentations comprising thousands of objects. You’ll find new and familiar pieces in entirely novel contexts: a 17th-century Dutch painting beside 20th-century photography, for example, or African textiles near American quilts.
Alexander Calder, Three Quintains (Hello Girls), 1964, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Museum Council Fund, © Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Fredrik Nilsen Studio
Public Artwork Surrounds the Building
Before you step inside the building, you’ll encounter a collection of outdoor artworks as you explore LACMA’s transformed campus. Some of these are old favorites that have been given new life, like Alexander Calder’s restored mobile sculpture Three Quintains (Hello Girls), bronzes by Auguste Rodin in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden, and Tony Smith’s soaring geometric Smoke, which now has more room to breathe outside only meters from its previous indoor site. Joining these are new sculptures, like Jeff Koons’s blossoming Split-Rocker, with more to come. And you’ll still find other beloved public artworks around our campus, including Chris Burden’s Urban Light and Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass.
David Geffen Galleries at LACMA with Tony Smith’s Smoke (1967) in background, © Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Iwan Baan
The Pavement Is One of the Largest Works of Art in the World
Forming the expansive floor of the plaza level that surrounds the entire building, Mariana Castillo Deball’s Feathered Changes measures 220,000 square feet. As you move across and along the pavement’s undulating paths and striations, you’ll encounter the footprints of local wildlife like coyotes, bears, raccoons who have long traversed this landscape, as well as sections inscribed with drawings representing the mythical Mesoamerican Feathered Serpent, based on murals found in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico. Large-scale rubbings taken from a portion of the work are also on view inside the galleries.
Light and Shadow Transform the Viewing Experience
Rather than providing uniform illumination, architect Peter Zumthor designed the galleries to allow light and shadow to work in dialogue. L.A.’s clear, warm sunlight enters from the sides, illuminating objects in the terrace galleries, while relatively darker galleries are found in interior spaces. No two visits are alike, since the building responds to the weather, season, and time of day. The hundreds of custom-made glass panels that make up the perimeter of the Geffen Galleries also provide a 360-degree view of the city outside and the rest of LACMA’s campus, including BCAM, the Resnick Pavilion, and the Pavilion for Japanese Art.
The Curtains Are a High-Tech Textile
The Curtains Are a High-Tech Textile
Bespoke metallic curtains by textile designer Reiko Sudō add further dimension to the building’s interplay of light and shadow while providing protection for delicate objects. As is typical of her practice, which merges tradition with experimentation and technology, Sudō developed a sputter-plated chrome textile that shields art inside but is still transparent, allowing dramatic views of Wilshire Boulevard and beyond. The LACMA × NUNO Sputtered Chrome (2025) matte and gloss textiles will also be included in the upcoming exhibition Textile Alchemy: The Art of Reiko Sudō and NUNO, an in-depth survey of designer’s work created with her textile collective opening at LACMA later this year.
Visitors in the David Geffen Galleries with Todd Gray’s Octavia’s Gaze, 2025, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the 2024 Collectors Committee, © Todd Gray, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Kristina Simonsen
Newly Commissioned Artworks Are Everywhere
You’ll discover a number of new pieces commissioned especially for the Geffen Galleries. Todd Gray created Octavia’s Gaze, a three-dimensional photographic assemblage that, much like the galleries themselves, invites visitors to rethink art history. Two artworks by Lauren Halsey—a reclining sphinx and a grand wall relief—reference Egyptian forms and subject matter while incorporating imagery from her South Los Angeles neighborhood. Do Ho Suh’s Jagyeong Hall, Gyeongbok Palace, meanwhile, consists of an actual-size re-creation of traditional Korean architectural forms from the Joseon dynasty, rendered in translucent wire and nylon that appear to pierce a concrete wall of one gallery and re-emerge in another. Find these and other commissions both inside and outside the building.
Exterior view southeast toward Wilshire Boulevard with Tony Smith’s Smoke (1967) in foreground, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, art © Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Iwan Baan
The Building Is a Concrete Sculpture
One of the many noteworthy elements of the Geffen Galleries is its use of architectural concrete (accented with glass, bronze, and other elements) that makes up both its structure and aesthetic finish. Throughout the construction process, over 85,000 cubic yards of concrete were poured, all together forming a monumental sweeping form that stands with no support columns or joints. The unadorned surfaces of Zumthor’s “concrete sculpture” allows its raw materials and the marks of the people who built it to shine.
Visitors in the David Geffen Galleries, 2026, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Charles Powers
There’s a Secret Formula Behind the Colors
While most of the building showcases raw, unadorned concrete, the interior galleries have been colored with layers of custom-made glazes that tint rather than cover their walls. While settling on the final palette—dusky red, vibrant blue, and black—Zumthor and the team at LACMA were inspired by the artistry and science of pigments from the Indigenous Americas showcased in the exhibition We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art. Their formulas are composed of mineral pigments ground down so small they become transparent and were applied in many layers by a small team of painters, most of whom are fine artists. Only two people know the precise “recipes” that were crafted in the moment based on the size of each gallery, and the final result of the layered transparent washes is concrete that seems to emanate color, each wall its own work of art.
Visitors in the David Geffen Galleries, 2026, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Charles Powers
It’s Earthquake-Proof
One of the most important aspects of the Geffen Galleries is its state-of-the-art seismic protection, a necessity in Los Angeles. During an earthquake, the entire building can move up to five feet in any direction, sliding in a gentle, fluid motion thanks to the 56 sophisticated seismic base isolators underneath it. This means that the new building has security built in, keeping art and visitors safe now and in the future.
Aerial view of LACMA buildings, including David Geffen Galleries in context of Miracle Mile, photo © Iwan Baan
Seven Pavilions Are Home to the Museum’s Store, Café, and More
The park-level pavilions that keep the gallery afloat don’t just hoist the exhibition level 30 feet into the air above Hancock Park, but are home to public spaces you can explore. Right now, you can browse books and objects at the LACMA Store, join family-friendly activities at the W.M. Keck Education Center and the Keck Gallery, and enjoy grab-and-go meals at Erewhon at LACMA. A restaurant, wine bar, and theater will also open later this year.
