Crypto philanthropy is emerging as a meaningful funding stream, particularly among younger and wealthier donor demographics. Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images
In the past year, the Toledo Museum of Art received several dozen works on paper by the Pop artist Marisol, a series of black-and-white photographs by Brett Weston, two sculptures by Roxy Paine, a painting by Richard Diebenkorn, four sculptural works by Martin Puryear and a linoleum-cut print by Kara Walker, among other artworks. Most donations to the museum, of course, came in the form of cash—such as the gift from one local family that funded free parking for visitors for 10 years—but not all. Other gifts included shares in startup businesses (a pharmaceutical and a tech company among them), an estate and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Solana, and others.
“There is a lot of flexibility in the kinds of donations we will accept,” Adam Levine, the museum’s director, told Observer. The museum’s board determines the types of gifts the institution will accept, and it becomes the development department’s job to figure out what to do with donations that aren’t artworks or cash. “We don’t have people on staff with expertise in real estate and crypto and startup companies,” he said, adding that the museum can “accept a variety of things, generally liquidating them immediately.”
The estate, for instance, was turned over to realtors who sold the house and property for $800,000, while the crypto was deposited in an account at The Giving Block, a Pennsylvania-based platform that helps nonprofits convert cryptocurrency donations into usable cash. The Toledo Museum of Art began accepting crypto in 2023, with donations amounting to more than $100,000 in 2025, “and that amount has been growing every year,” Levine said.
A growing percentage of gifts to museums arrive in the form of “real estate, pension plans, life insurance payouts, boats, cars, crypto—you name it,” said Ken Cerini, managing partner of Cerini & Associates, which helps not-for-profit groups value and make use of non-cash donations. “I tell people who want to donate crypto to a nonprofit to reach out to the organization to see if they will take it. Most organizations will find a way to make it happen, particularly if it will be a sizeable donation.”
Among high-profile museums that accept non-cash donations are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which accepts cryptocurrency; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which accepts appreciated securities; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which accepts real estate. All three, along with others such as the Guggenheim, accept donations of stock.
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, according to a spokesperson, accepts stock (“several times each month”) and real estate (“that’s a bit more rare”), as well as wine donations from winemakers for its annual wine auction. “But at this time we don’t accept Bitcoin,” the spokesperson added. As one might expect, the online-only Museum of Crypto Art does.
Receiving a crypto or other non-cash donation requires more than simply deciding to accept it. The Giving Block, a crypto fundraising platform, works with close to 30 museums and cultural institutions across the U.S., including the Smithsonian Institution and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Over $1.2 million in crypto was donated to museums and cultural institutions in 2025—a nearly 50 percent increase from 2024. “When a crypto donation is received, we instantly convert the crypto to U.S. dollars to capture the full donation value and then send the U.S. dollars directly to the organization’s bank account,” a spokesperson told Observer. Unsurprisingly, crypto donors tend to “skew younger than traditional major donors”—millennials and younger Gen X—“but they also tend to be meaningfully wealthier than the average online donor.”
Making non-cash gifts offers tax benefits to donors, Cerini said, noting that “with the uptick in the stock market and cryptocurrencies realizing significant gains, there is real value in the donation of these assets, as donors get the benefit of a charitable contribution for the fair market value of the asset” without having to sell it and incur capital gains tax.
Chris Haydon, founder of Crypto Appraisal Pro, which provides IRS-compliant appraisals for cryptocurrency donations, stated that more than 70 percent of the top charities in the U.S., as ranked by Forbes, accept cryptocurrency donations. “That’s up from just 12 percent in 2020.” Donations of crypto have more than tripled in the past year, driven by the fact that cryptocurrencies have “created enormous wealth. Bitcoin alone has gone from under $1,000 in 2017 to over $90,000 today. Early holders are sitting on massive unrealized gains.” He added that “five years ago, accepting crypto was a novelty. Today, for major charities, universities and hospitals, it’s becoming standard practice.”
As with any other non-cash charitable donation—such as artwork or an antique—donors may receive a tax deduction (usually 30 percent of the item’s fair market value) if the asset has been held for more than one year, with the value assessed at the time of the gift. According to IRS rules, if the charitable contribution deduction claimed exceeds $5,000, a qualified appraisal is required.
Finding an appraiser with crypto expertise who is qualified to submit an IRS-compliant valuation is not easy. None of the members of the two largest appraiser associations—the Appraisers Association of America and the American Society of Appraisers—list crypto as a specialty. While some nonprofit staff may suggest a name, most follow Adam Levine’s policy: “We don’t recommend appraisers for art or crypto or anything. That’s something for the donors to take care of… we don’t want to get embroiled with the IRS.”
Linda Selvin, executive director of the Appraisers Association of America, recommends seeking out individuals identified as “business appraisers” to conduct qualified crypto appraisals. Some companies that offer appraisal services for non-cash assets include Charitable Solutions, Havenwood Holdings, AppraiseItNow.com and Sickler, Tarpey & Associates. Platforms that enable crypto donations—such as The Giving Block, Dechomai and Fidelity—can also provide recommendations. Appraisal fees vary with the value of the gift: Randy Tarpey, a CPA and partner at Sickler, Tarpey & Associates, charges $120 for donations in the $5,000 range and $995 for donations above $500,000. Joe Kattan, owner of AppraiseItNow.com, said his fees range from $400 to $2,000.
Perhaps one of the defining features of crypto is its volatility, rising and falling in value rapidly since—unlike the U.S. dollar—it is not pegged to other currencies or backed by a central bank. Still, Haydon argued, “crypto is easier to appraise than art or collectibles. With a Picasso or a rare antique, you’re making subjective judgments about condition, provenance and comparable sales that may be years apart. With Bitcoin or Ethereum, you have transparent, real-time pricing market data across multiple exchanges, 24 hours a day. The asset’s value at any given moment is publicly verifiable.” CNBC provides daily pricing data for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies; no one can tell you what that Picasso is worth today versus tomorrow.
Talk about a double dose of supermodel perfection!
Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber dominated the 2025 LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles this weekend, proving that the modeling gene runs deep in that family. As if we didn’t already know that! LOLz!
The mother-daughter duo hit the red carpet in El Lay’s Miracle Mile on Saturday in coordinated custom Gucci gowns that left jaws on the floor. Cindy, somehow 59 and yet forever flawless, looked every inch the legendary icon in a gold off-the-shoulder gown drenched in sequins and beads.
The masterpiece seemed to be a reimagined version of a Gucci Spring 2026 design, originally seen on Demi Moore back during Milan Fashion Week. But leave it to Cindy to make it her own! Its floral detailing and beaded fringe caught every glimmer as she posed before the Urban Lights installation outside the world-famous museum. (And if you’ve ever been to El Lay… you already know how legendary those LACMA lights are!)
And then came her 24-year-old daughter, who held her own next to her famous momma. The younger model stunned in a cherry-red, sparkling custom Gucci number with a plunging neckline. Her brunette waves were expertly styled by Bryce Scarlett, leaving Kaia appearing like something out of a vintage Hollywood dream… with a Gen Z twist!
The appearance marked another glamorous chapter in their mother-daughter fashion tale. From walking the Versace runway together back in 2018 to starring in campaigns side by side, Cindy and Kaia continue to show what passing the torch looks like when BOTH ends are on fire!
Reactions, y’all?? Drop ’em in the comments (below)!
Cynthia Erivo, Demi Moore, Elle Fanning and Tessa Thompson delivered sparkle, volume and drama at the event presented by Gucci
LACMA’s annual Art+Film gala presented by Gucci always promises to be a starry — and fashionable — affair.
The 14th event, co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, united guests from the film, art and fashion worlds — including Cynthia Erivo, Demi Moore, Angela Bassett, Lorde, Tessa Thompson, Lauren Halsey, Finneas O’Connell, Jon M. Chu, Joel Edgerton, Benito Skinner, Kathryn Hanh, Kerry Washington and Elle Fanning — to honor artist Mary Corse and filmmaker Ryan Coogler.
Honoree Mary Corse, wearing Gucci, Michael Govan, CEO, LACMA, wearing Gucci, Eva Chow, 2025 Art+Film Gala Co-Chair, wearing Gucci, Leonardo DiCaprio, 2025 Art+Film Gala Co-Chair, Zinzi Coogler, wearing Gucci and honoree Ryan Coogler, wearing Gucci Credit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
The arrivals — photographed in front of LACMA’s Urban Light installation — amount to one of the year’s glitziest fashion shows.
Emma Roberts and Angela Bassett, wearing GucciCredit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
Among the Gucci-clad guests making the biggest splash: Elle Fanning, Angela Bassett, Emma Roberts, Salma Hayek Pinault and the mother daughter duo of Kaia Gerber and Cindy Crawford.
Kaia Gerber and mother Cindy Crawford, both wearing GucciCredit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
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After posing for the press line, guests continued into the cocktail party — where they sipped Justin wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Rose) and featured cocktails (including the Lychee Martini, Sparkling Penicillin and the Refraction, with Tequila Don Julio Reposado, creme de cacao and lemon).
Cynthia Erivo, Demi Moore, and Tessa Thompson, wearing GucciCredit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
Inside, a sparkly Moore chatted with an equally sparkly Thompson (both were wearing Gucci). Nobody Wants This star Justin Lupe looked red-hot alongside husband Tyson Mason.
Tyson Mason and Justine Lupe Credit: Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for LACMA
Queen Latifah caught up with Quinta Brunson. Elle Fanning made the rounds in a pale-blue dress — trailed by a fuzzy coat and several photographers.
Elle FanningCredit: Getty Images for LACMA
Dustin Hoffman, accompanied by his wife, jokingly helped himself to an empty hors d’oeuvres tray. And Cynthia Erivo arrived fashionably late — just as dinner was getting started — but made it up for it with the grand entrance she made in a voluminous gray tulle number.
Nnamdi Asomugha, Kerry Washington, Salma Hayek, wearing Gucci, and François-Henri Pinault Credit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
Inside, guests enjoyed dinner by chef David Shim of Simon Kim’s COTE New York (America’s only Michelin-starred Korean steakhouse) served on Ginori 1735 Oriente Italiano porcelain.
Delfin Finley, Todd Gray, Kohshin Finley and Lauren Halsey Credit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
Afterward, Doja Cat — dripping in diamonds and draped in blue fur — closed the night with a sultry performance of hits including “Paint The Town Red.”
“Baby, just play your cards,” she crooned over dessert.
Doja Cat, wearing Gucci, performs onstage Credit: Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
Side by side, Golden State (2024) and Turbulence (2024) strike a stunning dichotomy; both are abstracted landscapes, but while one appears composed of sunlight, the other is composed of shade. Courtesy of Zheng Chongbin
Ut supra, sic infra. As above, so below. This is the ethos of Zheng Chongbin’s design philosophy. Based in San Francisco’s Bay Area, Chongbin creates paintings by layering swaths of ink and paint upon one another, transforming canvases into topographic elements. He lets his canvases breathe; he lets them react naturally to the paint—his work is peeling, pitting, cracking, seeping into the canvas. His paintings bear likeness to natural formations from mountain peaks, riverbeds and fault lines to blood capillaries, skin matrices and synapses. They bear witness to the viewer as much as the viewer does to them. Chongbin furthermore embraces the entropic movements of the paint upon the canvas and, in doing so, instills his work with an interiority that, although invisible to the viewer, is instinctually felt by them.
Through his holistic practice spanning painting, light-and-space installation and digital media, Chongbin has graphed ecologies and vitality across his work, muddling our perception of sentience and life. In “Zheng Chongbin: Golden State,” his solo exhibition at LACMA, he casts his eye upon California’s expansive geography. Comprising the artist’s earlier works alongside newer offerings, the exhibition is a systematic symphony of image and composition that privileges experience and temporality over didactic interpretation.
“It’s an environment I’m dealing with. It’s a living thing,” Chongbin told Observer, explaining how his practice revolves around the unique, organic quality behind each subject. “My sensibility—in extension to [art]—is it feels like a part of your body… not in the traditional way, but the habitual way, in a way that you interact with your body extensions. And so you feel like dealing with and collaborating with living things… You’re not the protagonist. You are actually facilitating what happens.”
A still from Chimeric Landscape (2015), which renders a particularly social vision of blood cells as they migrate and mingle. Courtesy of Zheng Chongbin.
Born in Shanghai in 1961, Chongbin was brought up during China’s Cultural Revolution and thus trained in classical Chinese art forms, particularly within the ink tradition. In 1978, China’s Open Door Policy allowed an influx of Western ideas, materials and art forms that had previously been forbidden. Among these Western art traditions, Chongbin was most influenced by Abstract Expressionism, German Expressionism and the Light and Space movements, along with specific artists such as the visceral figuration of Francis Bacon, the conceptual installations of Robert Irwin and the sculptural forms of Larry Bell.
These inspirations are easily perceptible in Chongbin’s work, which shares a visual kinship with modern Western art movements while maintaining dialogue with the ink traditions in which he was classically trained. In this vein, Chongbin intentionally grants his work its own psychology, allowing art to have its own internal world that extends beyond himself, the peripheries of art movements and the borders of countries, and instead arrives directly in front of the audience, whomever and wherever they are. His physical practice, of course, reflects this dynamic—his final pieces, regardless of medium, are often beset with texture and kineticism. They share a palpable lifeblood.
One of Chongbin’s few paintings to utilize color, Golden State (2024), with its bright yellow swaths of color, by strokes of black, gray and white, represents the intense sunlight of California, banded with belts of trees, rain fog, fire scars and earthquake fault lines. For this painting, Chongbin chose to paint on shrimp paper, a light material made from the bark of sandalwood, and in doing so gave Golden State a unique, breathable quality. Chongbin gives his materials agency, allowing the paint to crack and fissure as new layers are applied while still maintaining its bold presence and—in the case of Golden State—its brilliant color.
“It feels like ecologies,” Chongbin said, recalling the effect of the paint penetrating microfibers, coursing color through the paper’s delicate veins. “Everything [that goes] through is my skin… things not only happen on the top, but also happen in the middle of space [and] into the other side. It’s very much a living organism. The space changes and the surface becomes a space… You have this kind of indexical trace of the classic methodology of the work.”
Though, as noted, Chongbin rarely paints with color, his paintings are often in dialogue with one another, not only in form and context but in composition as well. Turbulence (2013) and Golden State are operational foils of one another. While Golden State primarily looks to the skies of California, reproducing its dappled sunlight through elements of nature, Turbulence looks to the earth; its bands of black paint, puddled by various ink blots, resemble mountain basins, rocky ridges, igneous extrusions and cooling magma. Both paintings, as well as most of Chongbin’s work, consider the spatial experience of the environment. Both are monumental pieces, climbing eight, nine or ten feet high, enveloping the viewer in the sublimity of their ecologies.
“I always explore… what’s happened on the surface [and] what’s happened underneath,” Chongbin said. “All of those bold lines are a cast of what’s happening underneath. The water is actually like rushing down through the themes, through the slope and goes underneath and pushes out. I want to instantiate nature rather than depicting it.”
His light-and-space installation Mesh (2018) filters natural, medical and abstract imagery through refracted light. Courtesy of Zheng Chongbin.
Chongbin regaled us with stories of his adventures on hiking trails in the foothills of Marin County and wandering the steely beaches of Northern California. He saw “the dead things come alive.” His installation, Chimeric Landscape (2015), was inspired by one such encounter. Chongbin described looking at a sand dollar awash on the shore and seeing a multitude of lifeways. He remarked with wonder at the creature’s iridescence as it shimmered in the sunlight. He marveled at its respiration—its “millions of little lights flickering” as the sand dollar’s velvety matrix of pores undulated gently.
With Chimeric Landscape, he weaves short clips of water, ink, cell functions and other ephemera into Euclidean geometries that twine and break only to reform again. The installation celebrates the little breaths of life that these inanimate objects take while deconstructing their spatial differentiation. “The structure of Chimeric Landscape is obviously a non-linear narrative,” he explained. “The one visual dominance that we encounter is the ink flow, it’s used as the symbol of the water, but water is reflected in a lot of the formations and the emerging qualities that I think are essential elements for everything—our bodies and the earth.”
This natural essence echoes throughout the work in the LACMA show, invoking atmospheres that range from the monumental to the microscopic. Whether constructing a cosmos out of ephemera or a simulacrum out of geographies, Chongbin places equal emphasis—equal importance—on his art and his viewer. He collaborates with both material and mind, allowing one to inform the other, ensuring that what lies above reflects below.
Los Angeles artist Eamon Ore-Giron with his sprawling panoramic piece, Tomorrow’s Monsoon. Courtesy of James Cohan Gallery
When I visited Eamon Ore-Giron’s Talking Shit with Amaru, currently on display in “Grounded” at LACMA, I was struck by the painting’s congenial quality—the vibrant color palette, the bold shapes summoning the eye from one edge to the next. The composition borders on symmetry, though never fully embraces it, and the painting as a whole is animated by a certain verve and versatility. The negative space serves as a visual digestif, arranging itself around the striking motifs and the vivid colors, which open themselves to the viewer’s interpretation. As the title implies, Talking Shit with Amaru is a conversation, albeit a visual one.
The painting, which depicts the transdimensional hybrid creature of Andean mythology, is idiomatic of the Los Angeles-based artist’s half-abstract, half-representational style. In his Talking Shit series, Ore-Giron has conducted an ongoing conversation with the artistic legacy of the ancient Americas, embracing symbols and forms from ancient Andean and Incan textile, architecture, mosaic and ceramic practice. He especially favors the artistic technique of contour rivalry—a visual style rooted in the Chavín culture of the central Andes. Ore-Giron’s own style has cycled through various stages of figuration and abstraction, a process by which he has developed his visual language—one that engages the expectations of contemporary Western abstraction, while communing with the arcana of ancient American artistry.
Talking Shit with Amaru by Eamon Ore-Giron, a painted conversation depicting an ancient Andean deity. Courtesy of James Cohan Gallery
“Depending on the heritage, a lot of abstraction lives side by side with the figure in the form,” Ore-Giron tells Observer. “Nature can provide some of the original forms in abstraction, like the pattern on a snake’s skin or the pattern on an insect.”
Disparate ecologies: Amaru at LACMA
Nature—and its impact—was a core theme of “Grounded,” which mapped perfectly onto Ore-Giron’s 2021 painting. “This idea of nature is not something external. It’s something internal,” he says when asked what excited him about the premise of the exhibition. “This piece, in particular, is internal in the sense that it’s a story that I carry with me—the gods that live here and still live here. Being ‘grounded,’ essentially, can actually be manifested in stories and in imagery and in a rekindling of a personal relationship to these deities.”
Ore-Giron’s work favors the viewer’s personal connection with its subject over impressing a precise intention on its form or meaning. As such, in Talking Shit with Amaru—which appears, at first, as a vivid constellation of shapes, colors and varied opacities—takes on different dimensions the longer the viewer regards it. A body forms out of the multicolored coordinate circles, talons bookend fluid lines, a tongue bolts down the width of the linen canvas. Fittingly, Amaru is a deity with the ability to transcend the boundaries of the aerial and terrestrial worlds, a celestial interloper. He explains that, having very few depictions of this particular creature, he mostly drew from Amaru’s mythographic descriptions. In his depiction of the god, Amaru is not an ancient deity but one that rhymes with the conventions and culture of modern-day Latin America.
“There are so many different ways in which ancient history interfaces with modernity,” Ore-Giron explains, expressing his fascination with the ways in which ancient aesthetics and stories have survived into the modern day, and how our concept of modernity often informs our interpretation of the past. For example, the name “Amaru” carries vastly different implications in today’s Andean culture than it once did, eliciting notions of both divine power and individual identity. Among the Peruvian resistance fighters, “Túpac Amaru” was a name given to someone who fought against colonial powers. In Talking Shit with Amaru, Ore-Giron effects a portrayal that incorporates not only figure, but legacy.
Ore-Giron’s tools of the trade: mineral paints, a careful color palette and stretched raw linen. Courtesy of James Cohan Gallery
“It’s interesting that these deities then can take on these names in a culture,” Ore-Giron continues. “Even as the culture model changes so much. It goes through so many different changes, [but] doesn’t stay fixed. It’s not static. The most fascinating thing is the ways in which these deities and these ideas and the visual language all around it are constantly being reinvented.”
Resistance, reinvention, repetition
This theme of reinvention and resistance is present in every fiber of Ore-Giron’s work, from the subject matter to his preference for painting on raw linen as opposed to pristine, gessoed canvas. (“There’s sometimes little blades of grass that are accidentally woven in the factory,” he says of the linen. “It’s very physical.”) A musician as well as a visual artist, his creative identities often intersect at the very same juncture of reinterpretation and cross-cultural exchange. He lived in Mexico City in the 1990s and found a wealth of inspiration from the city’s DJ culture, which often sampled and mixed Peruvian music. He was fascinated by the subculture’s decision to find its primary inspiration in another Latin American culture as opposed to a Western one. “Instead of being oriented towards the north, toward the United States or toward Europe,” he elaborates. “Their primary focus was the south and to look to the south for inspiration.”
Similarly, Ore-Giron synthesizes Latin American folk music such as Cumbia with the esoteric production techniques of artists such as MF DOOM. “I think it had a profound impact on the way that I approach visual language as well,” he says, “because it made me want to look deeper into the histories of visual language in Latin America. On a conceptual level, that’s where the music and the art really are working together.” As such, on Ore-Giron’s grounded linen canvases, where abstraction meets figuration, antiquity meets modernity and a visual rhythm that rings above all, strong and resonant.
Talking Shit with Amaru is on view in LACMA’s “Grounded” through June 21, 2026. James Cohan Gallery in Tribeca will show “Eamon Ore-Giron” from November 7 through December 20, 2025.
Los Angeles has no shortage of museums, and more are coming. Particularly in anticipation of the 2028 Summer Olympics, several existing museums are in the midst of remodels and additions that will greet locals and tourists alike. Meanwhile, others such as the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park and the Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center of California in Glendale will add to the landscape once their construction and buildouts are complete.
The California Science Center’s $450 million Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will nearly double the museum’s educational space, promising new exhibits, classrooms and a dramatic new home for the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
“Just about everybody on the team, architects, engineers and contractors, say this is the most complex building they have ever worked on,” said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and chief executive of the California Science Center. “This was the first time that a complete space shuttle stack, the whole system, has been put together anywhere outside of a NASA or Air Force facility. That presented lots of challenges, and we had a fantastic team that overcame every challenge.”
The Exposition Park-based museum will present the shuttle to visitors with an unobstructed view, the structure that houses the spacecraft will feature a framework of diagonally intersecting beams and has no columns or sheer walls. The self-supporting structure was one “we’re told could not have been designed on paper, only with computer models,” said Rudolph.
Towering 20-stories high, the Air and Space Center will house an impressive collection of aircraft and spacecraft, illustrating key concepts for each of its three multi-level galleries – Air, Space and Shuttle – that span four floors and 100,000-square-feet of exhibit space. The entire expansion will total 200,000 square feet and will contain 150 educational exhibits.
“We still have money to raise with the project having a $450 million campaign goal,” said Rudolph. “We’re at $375 million and we’re still actively raising money. We have been able to issue bonds to finance the project, so we will not have problems being able to finish it, but we need to raise the money to repay those bonds.”
‘Pretty spectacular’
Downtown-based architectural firm ZGF designed the project, with construction by Santa Fe Springs-based MATT Construction and engineering by downtown-based firm ARUP.
“We have renderings and they’re pretty spectacular, but they do not do (the center) justice,” said Rudolph. “You’re able to walk around the whole shuttle to see in detail all the parts of the system. You’re able to stand underneath them, engine nozzles and look up the whole stack.”
The California Science Center recently partnered with Bad Robot, the film, television and video game production company led by director and producer J.J. Abrams, to produce two films for the new exhibits. One of the films will play at a mini theater near the entrance to the Endeavor exhibit and will end with a simulated launch and a reveal of the 20-story space shuttle.
Other experiences include the “shuttle descent slide,” which will allow visitors to recreate the feeling of the shuttle’s landing. Visitors will enter a 45-foot slide that will glow orange, as if reentering Earth’s atmosphere and recreates a double sonic that the shuttle produces when it landed. There will also be a hands-on exhibit where visitors can issue commands to a rover akin to the ones operating on Mars.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about the 14-minute delay communicating to Mars,” Rudolph said. “We haven’t put in a 14-minute delay, but our program you program it and then you have to wait a bit. You can’t just send the command directly. You’ve got a plan ahead.”
The building will be completed before the year is out, but there is still work to be done installing artifacts and exhibits, so an opening date has not been set.
“We’re really proud of it,” said Rudolph. “Every day, we walk into the building and everyone gets excited.”
Institution: The Huntington Library’s Exhibition and West halls will undergo renovation. (Photo c/o David Esquivel)
The Huntington has embarked on one of the largest construction pushes in its history, with a $126.6 million renovation of its historic library and a $40 million scholar housing project.
The long-term vision behind these projects is to “ensure The Huntington’s collections are preserved and accessible for generations to come,” said Randy Shulman, senior vice president for advancement and external relations.
The San Marino-based institution’s initiatives with the Library/Art Building (LAB) will transform the original library building, completed in 1920 and designed by architect Myron Hunt, into an 83,000-square-foot facility with updated exhibition halls. It will also include a new exhibition space for the history of science and expanded reading spaces for researchers.
The library construction will also add dedicated studios for painting and objects conservation, state-of-the-art storage vaults for one-third of the library’s 12 million-item collection and the art museum’s 38,000 works on paper. Additional offices will support staff.
“The outmoded 1920s back-of-house spaces will be replaced with modern construction that provides advanced climate and security systems as well as fully ADA-compliant facilities that will serve both the historic and modern portions of LAB,” said Shulman.
Dubbed Scholars Grove, the housing project will include 33 units of reasonably priced housing for research fellows. The project has been fully funded through a $40 million gift by the late Charlie Munger, former vice chairman of the investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway which he oversaw with longtime business partner Warren Buffett.
“Scholars Grove will address a decades-long challenge by providing reasonably priced housing for visiting researchers,” said Shulman. “This will ensure that more scholars – particularly early career researchers and those from under-resourced institutions – are able to accept highly prized Huntington research fellowships.
The Library/Art Building’s budget is more than 90% funded, anchored by a $25 million gift from an anonymous donor, along with the support of a group of regional and national donors and foundations.
These projects follow earlier expansions such as the Steven S. Koblik Education and Visitor Center, completed in 2015. The Huntington, founded in 1919, has grown from Henry E. Huntington’s private estate into a destination for more than 800,000 visitors who come each year.
The projects are designed to “strengthen The Huntington’s role as a cultural and intellectual anchor for the San Gabriel Valley and beyond,” said Shulman. “Revitalized library exhibition halls, including major new permanent exhibitions, will open up the Library’s astounding cultural heritage holdings to general audiences and further cement The Huntington as a destination for cultural tourism.”
Los Angeles Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, Mayor Karen Bass, Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Broad director and president Joanne Heyler, Board co-founder Edythe Broad, L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, and East West Bank chief executive Dominic Ng. (Photo by Jojo Korsh, c/o The Broad)
The Broad Museum broke ground in April on a $100 million expansion that will add 55,000 square feet and boost gallery space by 70%.
The downtown-based institution will remain open during construction and museum leaders expect the new addition will open to the public before Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics. General admission will continue to be free.
“The Broad is a hub that contributes to the cultural and economic vitality of downtown Los Angeles, welcoming visitors from all corners of our city and around the world,” said Mayor Karen Bass during the March announcement. “This expansion will help make the arts more readily available to all who visit downtown and help shape Grand Avenue into an even more inclusive, world-class arts destination.”
The expansion is part of a larger effort to strengthen Grand Avenue’s role as a cultural corridor, alongside institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The added square footage will allow for rotating exhibitions, while new courtyards and live programming venues will engage visitors beyond the gallery setting.
The expansion is being designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the architects of the existing museum. In addition to the new gallery space, there will be two top-floor, open-air courtyards; a flexible live programming space; and a “vault experience” where visitors can see artworks rotated in and out of storage.
Founded in 2015 with a mandate from husband-and-wife philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, the museum celebrated its 10th anniversary in early September. (Eli Broad died in 2021.)
The Broad collection has more than 2,000 artworks from the 1950s to today, with pieces from influential artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol.
“The Broad museum has exceeded the expectations I shared with my late husband Eli,” said Edythe Broad. “It is time to set the museum on course for the future.”
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the starship-shaped structure rising out of Exposition Park, is entering its final phase of construction, promising to bring a $1 billion cultural landmark to Los Angeles.
The staff is completing the final touches on the interiors. Ground was broken for the museum eight years ago, and construction has faced delays due in part to supply chain issues and design changes. The original opening date, set for 2021, has been pushed multiple times.
After the interior work is finished, art installation will come next and the opening is anticipated next year, according to an individual familiar with the progress. The latest opening delay from 2025 to 2026 reflects a decision to ensure that the museum is fully ready to welcome visitors.
Construction crews are completing the installation of more than 1,500 curved exterior panels, a complex process that has given the building its distinctive futuristic, starship-like silhouette. The 300,000-square-foot building sits on what used to be a parking lot and is now an 11-acre campus and green space featuring hundreds of new trees and plants.
The five-story museum will house more than 10,000 pieces from “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas’ personal collection, including paintings, comics, illustrations, photographs, moving images, sculptures and film memorabilia. There will also be a 299-seat theater, glass elevators, a library, a cafe and restaurants. The rooftop terrace will offer panoramic city views.
The museum’s sole funders are its co-founders Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, who is co-chief executive and president of Chicago-based Ariel Investments.
Earlier this year, Lucas assumed the role of head of content direction for the museum after the departure of its director and chief executive, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, who had served in the position for five years. Jim Gianopulos, former CEO of 20th Century Fox, is now the museum’s chief executive.
After years of demolition and delays, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s(LACMA) $720 million David Geffen Galleries are finally taking shape, with an April opening in sight.
In a September update, the Miracle Mile-based museum reported that major construction was complete. Work on ground-level interiors will continue on the east side of the project, north of Wilshire Boulevard and on the Spaulding Lot, south of Wilshire Boulevard. Grading and paving for new outdoor spaces are underway, as well.
“Being so close to opening our new galleries and to having so much more art on view is incredibly exciting,” said Michael Govan, chief executive of LACMA. “L.A. will finally see 360 degrees of Peter Zumthor’s amazing architectural achievement and begin to sense how wonderful this building is going to be inside. We can’t wait to open to the public in April 2026.”
The David Geffen Galleries have 110,000 square feet of exhibition space, bringing LACMA’s total gallery space to 220,000 square feet.
The new building was made possible in part by a $150 million gift from music and film executive David Geffen and a $125 million investment from the County of Los Angeles. Trustee and board co-chair Elaine Wynn also donated $50 million and will have a wing of the museum dedicated to her.
When it opens, the David Geffen Galleries will showcase the museum’s permanent collection on a single level, a choice by architect Peter Zumthor to avoid hierarchies between cultures or time periods. Glass facades and elevated walkways will allow visitors to see into galleries from Wilshire Boulevard, while plazas and landscaping will connect the museum to the surrounding Miracle Mile corridor.
The project is also expected to strengthen LACMA’s role as a cultural center for Los Angeles, drawing both local audiences and international tourism.
With major structural work finished and interior build-out underway, the Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center of California in Glendale has reached a significant step forward for one of the city’s most anticipated projects.
The cultural center announced in September the successful completion of the Hazarashen Skylight glass installation, marking a major construction milestone.
“That’s a unique feature of the museum that will bring exterior light in and it’s reflective of architecture from Armenia,” said project executive Nareg Mouradian.
The skylight takes its name and inspiration from the hazarashen – a traditional Armenian roof design made from “a thousand” (hazar) pieces of wood used in homes across the Armenian Highlands.
“With the completion of the Hazarashen Skylight, we are one step closer to opening the doors of the Armenian American Museum to the public,” stated executive chairman Berdj Karapetian in a statement. “The skylight illuminates the Grand Lobby with natural light and symbolizes the spirit of welcome and belonging that will define the visitor experience at the museum.”
Museum leadership is targeting an early-to-mid 2027 opening date.
Construction has been completed on the subterranean parking garage, and the exterior core and shell are underway with anticipated completion by the end of the calendar year.
“We’re focused on getting the tenant improvements fully permitted,” said Mouradian. “Construction for the interiors will start early next year.”
In addition to the skylight, the museum will feature a demonstration kitchen, learning center and archives facility to engage visitors. These spaces will highlight Armenian culinary traditions, language and cultural heritage and serve as flexible classrooms for various programming.
Glendale-based Alajajian Marcoosi Architects designed the museum, which has an angular exterior modeled on rock formations seen in the Armenian Highlands. The 50,820-square-foot museum will include permanent and temporary exhibition galleries on the upper level, with a lobby, auditorium and offices on the ground floor.
The Glendale City Council approved the museum’s $1-per-year ground lease agreement in 2018. The initial term of the agreement will be 55 years with options to extend the lease term for four 10-year periods totaling 95 years. The museum will neighbor Glendale’s Central Library, the Museum of Neon Art and The Americana at Brand.
The funding for the museum came in part from a $10 million state grant and almost $1 million in federal funding, in addition to private donations. Additional fundraising efforts are ongoing, with a goal of broadening donor participation and ensuring that the museum’s exhibitions and educational programs are fully supported at the time of opening.
“You see that, right there,” Govan told me, directing my attention to the exposed steel beams that will one day house 150,000 works. “I promise, you’ll like it.”
Billy Farrell/BFA.com.
The building loomed over the cocktail hour, which was supposed to run from 6:00 to 6:30—mercifully the cocktails were flowing nearly two hours later, as the art world and the film world found their own cliques, mingling together occasionally. Both camps were quite heavily represented. Antwaun Sargent introduced me to Colman Domingo, before Domingo went to chat with Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemmons, and Sargent joined his boss, Larry Gagosian, to chat with novelist Emma Cline and the artist Austyn Weiner. “That’s Billie Eilish,” said Jordan Wolfson, affectless, as Eilish walked past. Keanu Reeves came in with the artist Alexandra Grant, and Jon Hamm was standing steps away from the artist Charles Gaines. At the bar toward the back, collector Peter Brant was chatting with the dealer Tony Shafrazi near reps from the David Kordansky Gallery and Hauser & Wirth CEO Ewan Venters.
After finally corralling everyone to their seats, Govan came on to thank some local politicians in attendance—“District two, we’re in district two now, where is Holly Mitchell, oh hi Holly!”—and alluded to recent global events, saying that “Los Angeles is such a diverse community that people crying out in pain everywhere in the world can be heard in LA.”
“The artists and their creativity help see our way forward,” he said.
Eva Longoria introduced Baca, this year’s honoree, who graciously accepted the standing ovation and said, “I’ve been painting over half my life in the LA River, telling the story of the people who disappeared from the river banks.”
And then the room hushed as Pitt took the podium and began a rousing speech in honor of Fincher, who directed the actor in Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
“Well, here’s something you never hear in a David Fincher screening: ‘That was fun. We should have brought the kids,’” he said, in his famously droll pitch. “Hi, my name is Brad Pitt, and I’m a survivor.”
Pitt, now with a shit-eating grin on his face, started offering up some of the things you hear the director say on a Fincher set.
First: “Let’s shoot this now before we all lose interest in living.”
And another: “Okay, we have the out-of-focus version. Now, let’s try it in focus.”
And last: “I want you guys to enjoy yourselves, but that’s what Saturdays and Sundays are for.”
“My life was forever altered one day in ’94 when I sat down for a coffee with David Fincher,” said Pitt. “Now, I don’t know if what we do really matters in the end. What I do think what matters is the people we hitch ourselves to and the indelible mark that they leave upon our very being.”
Fincher, a bit flustered, admitted that growing up, he always wanted to be a visual artist. And maybe he is—he conceded that a movie director might have to oversee hundreds of staff and scout places to shoot and use actors to embody their vision and hustle through meetings with backers to get funding… but artists have to do that, too, right?
“I’m pretty sure Cristo had a lot of weird meetings about locations and street closures and load times and refueling and linear acres of fabric, and somehow I always think of him as an artist,” he said.
In closing the speech, he looked to Baca and said “I’m grateful for my inclusion, and to see things standing next to Judy. I may even be mistaken for an artist.”
Shortly thereafter, Lenny Kravitz came out to rip through a smattering of hits that honestly sounded pretty amazing. Perhaps more amazingly, Lenny looks like he’s about 35 when in fact he’ll actually turn 60 next year—I know, shocking, I know. When he hung up his axe, Kravitz had officially marked the end of the LACMA Art+Film gala. Or so I thought—a short time later, I was at the Chateau Marmont, escorted up to the penthouse on the 6th floor, where Gucci was throwing a house-party-esque rager, complete with the stoner-perfect post-gala food provided by Jon & Vinny’s. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, both big art collectors, were whipping up the ’za themselves, and upon seeing Jonas Wood and his wife Shio Kusaka enter the party, Shook and Vitolo whisked them into the kitchen to say hello.
De Sarno was holding court on the balcony snapping selfies with Kim Kardashian as the Sunset Strip loomed in the background. At a certain point, Kardashian went to talk to her old boss, Paris Hilton. (Do recall, Kim made an early foray into the pop culture consciousness playing Hilton’s intern on The Simple Life.) Kering CEO Francois Henri-Pinault was drinking a Stella Artois beside Emma Chamberlain, and Jeremy Renner, who’s made very few appearances since his life-threatening snowplow accident earlier this year, hung out by the elevator. And when the DJ dropped “Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA, De Sarno jumped into the middle of a dancing scrum that included all the models, Eilish, and Julia Garner. One of the many Italians in the designer’s entourage yelled into my ears “Welcome to Gucci, baby!”
It was quite the welcome, but at a certain point, one has to leave Gucci, baby, as well. As the hour crept toward one in the morning, our intrepid host, DiCaprio, still in his Gucci tux, peeled off from Sotheby’s vice chairman Jackie Wachter and Wolfson and best friend Tobey Maguire to greet someone across the room. DiCaprio took Ceretti’s hand and walked toward the exit of the Chateau penthouse. It’s art, and film, and fashion, and Lenny Kravitz, and philanthropy, and Los Angeles, and museums, and celebrity, and…maybe…true love.
And that’s a wrap on this week’sTrue Colors! Like what you’re seeing? Hate what you’re reading? Have a tip? Drop me a line at nate_freeman@condenast.com.
