Soaring across Wilshire Blvd, the new LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art; lacma.org; adult/child $30/15) just underwent a $720 million renovation. The David Geffen Galleries replace the museum's four aging buildings, and with the new real estate comes an entirely new philosophy for exhibiting the largest collection of art in the western United States.
The depth and wealth of LACMA's collection is stunning. It includes millennia worth of Chinese, Japanese, pre-Columbian and ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian sculpture, plus treasures across media from every continent except Antarctica. From Europe and North America come stars like Rembrandt, Cézanne, Magritte, Mary Cassatt and Ansel Adams.
Permanent collection highlights include Chris Burden's outdoor installation Urban Light (a surreal selfie backdrop of hundreds of vintage LA street lamps) and Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass, a surprisingly inspirational 340-ton boulder perched over a walkway. Other high points: Cold Shoulder by Roy Lichtenstein and Flower Day by Diego Rivera. Two works are iconic LA: Mulholland Drive by David Hockney and 105 Freeway by Catherine Opie.
LACMA's Zen-like Pavilion for Japanese Art houses pieces ranging in origin from 3000 BCE to the 21st century.