The Best Art Galleries in Los Angeles Right Now

The Broad in downtown LA is the city's most visited contemporary art museum, housing Eli and Edythe Broad's collection of over 2,000 works. The Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrored Room alone is worth the trip, but the permanent collection features major works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, and Takashi Murakami. Admission is free, which remains genuinely surprising.

Book The Broad before you go. Free does not mean walk-in. Timed tickets are released monthly and go quickly, there is a standby line for the patient, and the Infinity Mirrored Room needs a separate same-day reservation once you are inside the building. Two other free ones people forget: MOCA dropped general admission altogether in 2020, and the Hammer in Westwood has charged nothing since 2014.

Hauser and Wirth's Arts District location transformed a flour mill complex into one of the most impressive gallery spaces in the country. The sprawling campus includes indoor and outdoor exhibition areas, a chicken coop, and Manuela restaurant. Their programming brings global art world heavyweights to downtown LA, and the openings are some of the best free events in the city.

The commercial galleries cluster, so plan by neighbourhood rather than by name. Culver City around La Cienega and Washington holds Blum among others. Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood has turned into a strip of them. Spruth Magers sits on Wilshire directly opposite LACMA, which makes it the easiest to bolt onto a museum afternoon, and Regen Projects is up on Santa Monica Boulevard. All free, none of them will ask what you are doing there, and most close on Sunday and Monday.

The Getty Center remains one of the world's great museum experiences, not just for the art but for the architecture. Richard Meier's hilltop campus offers panoramic views of Los Angeles, and the collection spans from medieval manuscripts to contemporary photography. The gardens are spectacular, admission is free, and the tram ride up the hill is part of the experience.

For emerging art, Night Gallery in the Eastside has become one of the most influential galleries for discovering new talent. Founded by Davida Nemeroff, the gallery consistently shows artists who go on to institutional recognition. The program focuses on painting and sculpture, and the openings attract a crowd that mixes serious collectors with artists and students.

The Underground Museum in Arlington Heights, founded by the late Noah Davis, remains a vital space for contemporary art that centers Black artists and communities. The gallery occupies a converted strip mall storefront and programs exhibitions, film screenings, and community events. It represents a model of gallery-making that is community-focused rather than market-driven.

Time a visit to February if you can. Frieze Los Angeles runs at Santa Monica Airport, and the smaller Felix fair takes over the Hollywood Roosevelt the same week, hanging work in the hotel's rooms and cabanas, which is a far better way to look at art than a convention hall booth and cheaper to get into. Every gallery in the city schedules its strongest show of the year for those few days.

https://www.thebroad.org