A powerful charcoal drawing by artist Robert Longo depicting a police line facing protestors in last year’s racially charged riots in Ferguson, Mo. is one of more than 50 new artworks added to the Broad collection in anticipation of the September 20 opening of Los Angeles’s new contemporary art museum, The Broad announced.

Most of the additions to the 2,000-work Broad collection built by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad are artworks that were acquired within a year of the artist producing them, reflecting the museum’s commitment to build a dynamic collection of the most comprehensive and current contemporary art. The works include newer artists to the collection, such as Julie Mehretu, Goshka Macuga and Ella Kruglyanskaya as well as a massive work by Takashi Murakami that is the largest painting in the Broad collection, and recent works by artists who are represented in-depth, including John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Koons, Christopher Wool and Damien Hirst.

The Broad also acquired a classic 1954 combine by Robert Rauschenberg and three sculptures by Cy Twombly. The Broad’s inaugural installation, which will feature some 250 works drawn from the Broad collection, is being curated by Founding Director Joanne Heyler. Highlights will be announced closer to the museum’s opening.

When The Broad opens on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles with free general admission, it will be home to one of the world’s leading collections of postwar and contemporary art, assembled over the past 40 years by the Broads. The 120,000-square-foot museum, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, will feature 50,000 square feet of public exhibition space on two floors, including a sky-lit, column-free top-floor gallery that spans nearly a full acre. The building also includes 21,000 square feet of onsite art storage that will serve as the headquarters for the ongoing operations of The Broad Art Foundation’s 30-year worldwide art lending program.

”One of the great delights of working with the Broad collection is the ability to add works by renowned masters such as John Baldessari or Robert Rauschenberg while also building our holdings in very contemporary works made by new generations of artists,” Heyler said. “We look forward to presenting these works at the museum, and to engaging and inspiring the public with truly contemporary works that reflect our expanding viewpoint on today’s art.”

“People sometimes ask whether Edye and I ever get tired of pursuing new acquisitions,” said Eli Broad. “It’s like asking if we’re tired of life. It’s exciting to discover new works—as they’re being created. We were drawn to contemporary art because it’s art of our time. And these latest acquisitions represent the themes and issues of the world we live in today.” 

Highlights of Recent Acquisitions The Broad’s most recent acquisition is Julie Mehretu’s Invisible Sun (algorithm 8, fable form), 2015. The ink-and-acrylic-on-canvas piece is the third work by the New York-based artist added to the collection in the last two years, and it is currently on view at the Art Basel art fair in Switzerland.

Robert Longo’s Untitled (Ferguson Police, August 13, 2014), is a powerful, 10-foot long charcoal drawing depicting the police line that faced protestors in Ferguson, Mo. in the aftermath of the shooting death of Michael Brown. Expanding on the longstanding history of works in the Broad collection with politically charged themes, Longo’s drawing was acquired earlier this year and highlights racial tensions and police brutality in the United States. Another recently acquired large-scale work is the massive, 82-foot-long and 10-foot-high painting In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow by Takashi Murakami. The 2014 work is the largest painting ever acquired by the collection and brings the Broad collection’s holdings of Murakami to 11 works.

Other recent acquisition highlights include Goshka Macuga’s Death of Marxism, Women of all Lands Unite, Suit for Tichý 4 and Suit for Tichý 5, all 2013, a printed --more-- wool tapestry and flesh-colored bodysuits for an installation inspired by the Communist-era Czech photographer Miroslav Tichý; Ella Kruglyanskaya’s Girl on a Hot Day, 2015, the first work by the artist added to the collection; Damien Hirst’s Fear, 2002, comprising thousands of dead flies thickly encrusted in resin; Christopher Wool’s Untitled, 2015, the 20th work by Wool added to the collection; and John Currin’s Maenads, 2015, an Old Master-inspired painting of three female figures, which increases the number of works by Currin in the collection to seven. The Broads’ interest in closely following the evolution of select artists over many years has led to an unparalleled depth of works for some major figures in contemporary art. The addition of Robert Rauschenberg’s Combine, 1954, one of the earliest examples of the artist’s hybrid invention of a sculptural form of painting, enhances the deep holdings of his work.

Five lithographs by Ed Ruscha – BLISS BUCKET, 2010; JET BABY, 2011; PERIODS, 2013; WALL ROCKET, 2013; and HISTORY KIDS, 2013 – feature majestic mountain landscapes overlaid with his signature wry and often cryptic text. The Broad collection has assembled one of the world’s largest holdings of works by Jeff Koons, a depth that increases with the addition of Hulk (Organ), a polychrome bronze depiction of the popular comic book character with a functioning organ integrated into its body. A large, recent diptych by John Baldessari, Pictures & Scripts: Honey – what words come to mind?, 2015, and the photo-based work Horizontal Men, 1984, as well as a full set of screenprints from his 2012 Eight Soups series, brings the collection’s Baldessari holdings to 40 works spanning nearly 50 years. The collection also added three sculptures by Cy Twombly, bringing the collection’s holdings in work by Twombly to 22.