With 100,000 objects dating from ancient times to the present, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is the largest art museum in the western United States. A museum of international stature as well as a vital part of Southern California, LACMA shares its vast collections through exhibitions, public programs, and research facilities that attract nearly a million visitors annually.

LACMA's seven-building complex is located on twenty acres in the heart of Los Angeles, halfway between the ocean and downtown. The campus is undergoing a ten-year expansion and renovation known as the Transformation and designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The first phase of the project opened in early 2008, introducing an open-air pavilion called the BP Grand Entrance as well as the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA, featuring 60,000 square feet of exhibition space on three floors. BCAM's inaugural installation includes expansive spaces devoted to the art of Richard Serra, Barbara Kruger, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Chris Burden, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and many more.

LACMA's collections encompass the geographic world and virtually the entire history of art. Among the museum's special strengths are its holdings of Asian art, housed in part in the Bruce Goff-designed Pavilion for Japanese Art; Latin American art, ranging from pre-Columbian masterpieces to works by leading modern and contemporary artists including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and José Clemente Orozco; and Islamic art, of which LACMA hosts one of the most significant collections in the world.

In April 2006, Michael Govan became CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of LACMA. Formerly president and director of Dia Art Foundation and deputy director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Mr. Govan is the seventh director in LACMA's forty-six-year history.