THE BROAD PULLS JULIE MEHRETU'S CANVAS UNTIL 2028

The Broad is giving Julie Mehretu's Invisible Sun one last weekend before packing it away for years, not months.

A 2015 Canvas Coming Down September 13

Julie Mehretu's Invisible Sun (algorithm 8, fable form), a 2015 ink and acrylic work measuring nearly 10 by 14 feet, comes off The Broad's walls on September 13 after its current run on view. The museum has been direct about the timeline: once it's de-installed, the piece won't return to view again until The Broad's 2028 expansion opens, turning what could read as a routine rotation into a genuine deadline for anyone who wants to see it in person. The painting previously lent its name to a full 2021 exhibition surveying the museum's collection, the same kind of single-artist deep dive that anchored The Broad's own Warhol Liz alongside a $31.5 million market comparison earlier this year, but this current display is a standalone hang, not the earlier group show revived.

The Expansion That's Actually Coming in 2028

The Broad broke ground on its expansion in April 2025, and construction has already reached a steel-topping-out milestone, with a public opening still targeted before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The new wing adds large galleries across three floors plus a visible storage vault where visitors can move among racked works from the collection, a literal unveiling of art that normally stays off view. Mehretu's canvas going into storage now sets up a natural return: a painting large enough to need its own wall gets one of the expansion's new large-format galleries once the building actually opens, rather than competing for space in the museum's current footprint.

A Deadline With No Rain Check

Museums often soften a piece coming off view with language about future rotations. The Broad's own post skips that softening entirely, stating flatly that this canvas won't be on view again until 2028, a level of scarcity messaging that art institutions have leaned on more aggressively all year to turn a closing date into an actual visit driver rather than a footnote. For a museum built around free general admission, a hard multi-year gap is one of the only scarcity levers it has left to pull.

Anyone who wants to stand in front of Invisible Sun this decade has one weekend left to do it, and The Broad is not pretending otherwise.