Los Angeles: The Broad Museum
THE BROAD MUSEUM. Often associated with "reserved months in advance," "the Infinity room," "Instagram worthy," "those blow-up balloon animal sculptures," and maybe more.
As soon as The Broad (pronounced "brode") opened, people could not reserve fast enough. I mean, it was booked months in advance. And if you just tried to "wing it" lines could take hours.
The hype has simmered down a bit since the opening, so you can reserve tickets as soon as next week. But beware of winter holidays and kids having time off from school.
The first time I attempted to go (chronicled here), was around said time last year: winter break. After getting to The Broad, we realized the line was FOUR HOURS LONG (we were tipped off that the line length of one square block was the equivalent of about one hour), and seeing as how the main event — the Infinity Mirrored Room — had to be reserved once inside, it didn't seem like we were going to be able to experience any of that, so we left. Then we tried to go to the Getty Center, and that was closed off because their parking lot was full. So we ended up at Diddy Riese in Westwood trying to salvage the hours we spent driving around Los Angeles, and wasting money in parking that we didn't actually use.
I'm not bitter or anything... when you go out in the Angeles, you have to be mentally ready for anything.
The second (and successful) attempt was on a week day. We did not get reservations in advance (they were unavailable anyhow) but we did end up being one of the first people in line by getting there thirty minutes before they opened. We also got a special performance by some musical acapella group that did the same song about five times so it was just right for the camera. At least they were really good so you didn't mind hearing it again and again.
Once inside, we immediately reserved our spot for the Infinity Mirrored Room. We had about 45 minutes until it was our turn so we took the long escalator up to browse the art collections.
Honestly, the architecture outside and even inside is a statement in itself. It's got this really organic feeling on the inside. Reminded me a bit of Antooni Gaudí's architecture in Spain.
My favorite thing was definitely the balloon animal lookalikes. So fun. So reflective.
The whole thing took about an hour to browse through. And it was kind of random. But included a lot of fun things and a lot of serious things and a lot of confusing things. Overall, you can't beat the price of free-dom. As in, the ticket was free. Did I mention that?
The grand finale was seeing Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room.
This really was one of those things that's just cooler in person than an edited Instagram photo. It's made up of — you may have guessed it — mirrors. And lights. And as you step into it, for that one minute, they close the door and it's just you, and you sort of feel like this is what space might feel like. Twinkling lights in an infinite distance.
Surprisingly, a minute is a good amount of time. It even allows you to enjoy it, take it in, and then snapchat it. #snapchatoritdidnthappen
