The Downtown L.A.<\/a> institution typically alternates between two types of exhibitions on its first floor: Specially ticketed artist-specific ones like the Yoko Ono<\/a>\u00a0retrospective currently on view, and free group shows that draw from the museum\u2019s own collection. \u201cHas the myth been shattered\u201d falls into that latter camp. (The upstairs galleries\u2014as well as downstairs\u2019\u00a0Infinity Mirrored Room\u2014are always free to visit.)<\/p>\n The show borrows its title from Guadalupe Rosales\u2019s\u00a0Has the myth been shattered, a full-length two-way mirror trimmed with color-changing LEDs that appear to extend into the abyss. At eye level, it pointedly suspends the front page<\/a> of a copy of the\u00a0Los Angeles Times from the days following the 1992 L.A. Uprising that wondered\u2014with doses of both optimism and pessimism\u2014whether the unrest would force people to meaningfully confront and\u00a0correct L.A.\u2019s ignored inequities.<\/p>\n Rosales\u2019s work, a recent acquisition, is among the dozen-plus that\u2019ll be on view at the Broad for the very first time, exhibited alongside ones from figures familiar to the museum\u2019s upstairs galleries, including Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon and Andy Warhol.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Broad collection has always supported artists who engage provocatively with the deepest and most highly charged subjects of their moment,\u201d said the Broad\u2019s founding director and president, Joanne Heyler, in a statement. \u201cThis exhibition spans decades of collection artists asking questions about injustices that persist in American life and offers a glimpse of how the collection is evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n A significant share of the exhibition\u2019s pieces were made in the 1980s and \u201990s, when people read things primarily on paper and not screens\u2014so print media plays a pretty major role in these meditations on race, history and belonging. But more recent works in the show also mine these tangible relics for meaning. Take Hank Willis Thomas\u2019s 2018 piece\u00a0Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot, which\u00a0spotlights a 13-page pamphlet from 1968 with instructions for how Black residents can withstand a military occupation; when exposed to a flash, the retroflective vinyl reveals photographs of the National Guard\u2019s nine-month occupation of Wilmington, Delaware. Or\u00a0Mickalene Thomas\u2019s<\/a> The\u00a0Charnel House (Resist #5), a 2021 piece that fills the contours of Picasso\u2019s\u00a0The Charnel House, an unfinished painting from World War II, with archival photos and signs from the\u00a0civil rights\u00a0and Black Lives Matter movements.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy hope is that this presentation not only contends with issues of our political and media landscape but also illuminates how much power is embedded in collective action and socially engaged art making,\u201d said Jen Vanegas Rocha, the exhibition\u2019s curator. \u201cThese artists are not simply reflecting the world as it is. They\u2019re architects of better futures, carving out space for the public to consider the possibilities within and against the systems they examine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Other works on display include portraits of former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller painted by Leon Golub just after the end of the Vietnam War, a tangle of media-crafting conveyor belts in\u00a0Mark Tansey\u2019s\u00a0Matrix and additional works from\u00a0Richard Artschwager, Sue Coe, Robert Longo, Goshka Macuga, Thomas Ruff and David Wojnarowicz.<\/p>\n![\"Guadalupe](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787271379_118_image.webp\")
\nCourtesy of the artist and The Broad Art Foundation.Guadalupe Rosales, Has the myth been shattered, 2024. Engraved aluminum artist\u2019s frame, mirror, two-way mirror, Los Angeles Times newspaper, plastic toy figurine, LED lights. 70 x 40 x 4 in. (177.8 x 101.6 x 10.16 cm).
<\/p>\n![\"Hank](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787271380_490_image.webp\")
\nCourtesy of the artist and The Broad Art FoundationHank Willis Thomas, Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot, 2018. Without flash. UV print on retroreflective vinyl, mounted on Dibond. 27 x 21 x 1 3\/4 in. (68.58 x 53.34 x 4.45cm).
<\/p>\n![\"Hank](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787271382_862_image.webp\")
\nCourtesy of the artist and The Broad Art FoundationHank Willis Thomas, Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot, 2018. With flash exposure. UV print on retroreflective vinyl, mounted on Dibond. 27 x 21 x 1 3\/4 in. (68.58 x 53.34 x 4.45cm).
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