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When someone visits the Broad museum for the first time, they usually ask one of three questions, says curator Ed Schad: Where is the Infinity Room, where is the Balloon Dog or where is the table?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe table\u201d is a reference to artist Robert Therrien\u2019s 1994 sculpture, \u201cUnder the Table,\u201d which was the very first piece of art installed at the museum when it opened in 2015. It consists of a 20-foot-long wooden table with six matching chairs each nearly 10 feet tall. Photos of museumgoers standing and grinning beneath it litter social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want that question to turn into a profound understanding of the man who made it,\u201d Schad continues, referring to the largest-ever solo museum show of Therrien\u2019s work \u2014 titled \u201cRobert Therrien: This Is a Story\u201d<\/a> \u2014 scheduled to open Nov. 22 and run through April 5, 2026.<\/p>\n Fall Preview 2025<\/p>\n The only guide you need to fall entertainment.<\/p>\n Therrien is famous for his large-scale sculptures \u2014 towering stacks of vertigo-inducing dishes, giant beards, enormous folding chairs and oversized pots and pans in humongous cupboards \u2014 but each piece is a \u201ctrap door,\u201d says Schad.<\/p>\n \u201cYou may think you\u2019ve got it right away and then the floor falls out,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Paul Cherwick and Dean Anes, who are co-directors of the artist\u2019s estate and worked closely with Therrien for years before his death in 2019<\/a>, elaborate on Schad\u2019s assessment. <\/p>\n Giant stacks of pots and pans created by Robert Therrien are on display at his downtown L.A. studio. \u201cHe didn\u2019t talk about blowing things up,\u201d says one of Therrien\u2019s estate managers, Dean Anes. \u201cHe talked about creating an environment that you had a reaction to.\u201d<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t talk about blowing things up. He talked about creating an environment that you had a reaction to,\u201d Anes says during a recent tour of Therrien\u2019s studio and apartment near downtown L.A. \u201cSo much of it is about his childhood memories and experiences. And his interest, I feel, was to be able to give viewers an opportunity to trigger their own childhood memories and feelings and experiences through the work.\u201d<\/p>\n Standing beneath a Therrien table does, indeed, produce vague \u2014 sometimes unsettling \u2014 recollections of being a small human in a not-yet-understood world of big things. If Therrien\u2019s sculptures symbolize the unknown, he did not talk about it, says Cherwick. The artist kept his underlying intentions to himself.<\/p>\n Therrien\u2019s legacy is best examined through his relationship \u2014 and importance \u2014 with sculpture in L.A., says Schad.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds grandiose, but it\u2019s true, Los Angeles is one of the best places to make sculpture on Earth,\u201d he says, rattling off a who\u2019s who of famous L.A.-based sculptors, including Robert Irwin<\/a>, Helen Pashgian<\/a>, Larry Bell<\/a> and John McCracken<\/a>, who was also Therrien\u2019s friend.<\/p>\n The list of L.A. artists who have made \u201cfantastic contributions to the global discussion about sculpture goes on and on and on,\u201d says Schad. \u201cRobert Therrien was not only a part of that conversation, but was vitally present.\u201d<\/p>\n A stack of giant dishes next to a blue oval in the upstairs gallery of Robert Therrien\u2019s downtown L.A. studio. The dishes create a feeling of vertigo when a viewer walks around them. <\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Therrien showed his work with famed art dealers Leo Castelli and Konrad Fischer, and was featured in the 1985 Whitney Biennial and the 1995 Carnegie International. He was also one of the artists that Eli and Edythe Broad collected most. There are 18 Therrien pieces in their collection, spanning his entire career. The Broads first met and befriended Therrien as a nervous young artist who brought a poodle for emotional support during their first meeting in the 1970s. <\/p>\n The upcoming exhibition at the Broad will feature 120 pieces of work, including sculpture, photography, painting, drawing and other ephemera, occupying the entire 10,000-square-foot ground floor. It will include an intimate series of never-before-seen smoke signals \u2014 cartoonish puffs of white smoke \u2014 fabricated on stretched car upholstery that Therrien made when he was dying of cancer and could barely lift a pen.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at his career as a whole, it speaks in a very intimate way to what Los Angeles is \u2014 and was \u2014 as a city,\u201d Schad says. Therrien was wild and experimental in the 1970s, as part of a feral community of artists who interacted and shared ideas with scientists at Caltech and NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This led to experimentation with the revolutionary methods of fabrication that would later define the scene.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city has so much space as well,\u201d says Anes. \u201cEarly on, of course, rents were cheaper. You could get an industrial space and you could be left alone. Bob carved this space out \u2014 created it himself \u2014 and he didn\u2019t have neighbors. He was here by himself, developing ideas and working on things.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Therrien\u2019s paintbrushes hang in his studio. The solitary artist created art at all hours of the day and night.<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The artist Cherwick and Anes describe was a quiet, reserved man with an excellent sense of humor. A solitary figure who preferred working alone and needed large doses of St. John\u2019s wort to get through days when his studio buzzed with people. He was 6 feet, 2 inches, wore a size 12 shoe and sported a suit jacket that was slightly too big. He was a ruminative thinker, and often brought a book as a gift when he visited someone.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had a sort of Fred Gwynne quality to him,\u201d says Cherwick, referring to the actor who played Herman Munster in the \u201960s sitcom \u201cThe Munsters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was very sweet,\u201d adds Anes. \u201cI kind of refer to him as your favorite odd uncle.\u201d<\/p>\n Above all, they say, Therrien was a consummate worker.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s all he lived to do,\u201d says Cherwick, looking around the studio. \u201cHe was in here working all the time \u2014 at all times. He made his whole life and existence about just being here.\u201d<\/p>\n Therrien\u2019s studio was built in 1990 but designed to resemble an industrial, institution-like space from the \u201930s or \u201940s. The exterior walls are his signature salmon pink and the toilets are almost a century old. The ground floor was his creative playground, filled with supplies, tools and large pieces of art, including a giant beard that greets guests upon arrival. <\/p>\n Robert Therrien would host long lunches at his kitchen after tours, often serving salad out of a giant bowl.<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n There is a Shaker-inspired gallery upstairs with ceilings that are almost 16 feet tall. Therrien never opened the gallery to the public but often hosted museum groups and curators, taking them to his adjacent apartment afterward and lingering over a long lunch of salad served from a giant bowl.<\/p>\n Since the studio was built before live-work spaces were common, Therrien had to design his modest apartment as a \u201cwatchman\u2019s quarters\u201d in order to adhere to building code. It features a vintage kitchen with pink-and-white tiling, drab olive walls and industrial brown flooring. <\/p>\n The \u201cheroes\u201d that inspired his giant dishes rest on the counter and the influence for \u201cUnder the Table\u201d is his actual dining table. Polaroids, knick knacks and mementos are carefully arranged in various tableaus \u2014 much as he left them. A closet-sized space across from the bathroom houses shelves of vinyl records, tapes and DVDs. Stereolab, Duke Ellington, \u201cSounds of Halloween\u201d and a mixtape labeled \u201cBob Foo Young\u201d are among the eclectic auditory selection. Therrien loved music and had the studio wired with speakers. Before that, he put a tape deck on a rolling cart.<\/p>\n Though Robert Therrien was 6 feet 2 and wore a size 12 shoe, he preferred a bed that did not match him in scale.<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n His bedroom always surprises guests, says Cherwick, stepping into the small, windowless rectangular space. It features only a single twin bed covered with a simple quilt on a severe-looking iron frame. A small crucifix is affixed to the wall above, and a rolling, pink-topped hospital table sits on the far side of the room.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the last thing everybody sees,\u201d says Anes. \u201cThe last statement.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cHe was a big guy … that was not enough bed for him,\u201d adds Cherwick. \u201cHe became out of scale with his own existence.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Therrien: This Is a Story <\/p>\n Where:<\/b> The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., L.A.<\/p>\n When:<\/b> 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; closed Mondays<\/p>\n Tickets:<\/b> Pre-sale tickets available now, $15<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n
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