ELI BROAD TO BUILD MUSEUM IN LOS ANGELES

Less than a year after the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened a fifty-six-million-dollar museum for contemporary art named for Eli Broad, the billionaire philanthropist who is its largest benefactor, Broad has decided to build his own museum and is considering a site just down the street, reports the New York Times. In an October 20 letter to the city manager of Beverly Hills, a lawyer representing Broad said he was interested “in bringing a first-class public art museum and adjacent foundation offices to Beverly Hills.” The letter says he is considering a site at the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, roughly three miles west of LACMA, whose twenty-acre campus sits on Wilshire next to the famed La Brea tar pits. The decision appears to be another reversal for Broad, who had said he did not intend to build his own museum. In January, he shocked many in the art world when he said he had decided to retain permanent control of his art collection in a private foundation rather than give much of it away. His move to reconsider his art foundation’s plans comes as museums and art institutions are suffering the effects of a global economic downturn that has diminished the value of their endowments and investments. This month, Broad told the Los Angeles Times_ that the value of his foundations had declined by 18 percent in the recent financial-market turmoil.