As LACMA prepares for the 2026 public opening of the new David Geffen Galleries, the future home of the museum’s permanent collection spanning a breadth of eras and cultures, we’re sharing 50 iconic artworks that will be on view in the building over the next 50 weeks in the series 50 Works 50 Weeks

California artist Ruth Asawa’s ethereal looped wire hangings rework the solidity of sculpture. After enrolling at Black Mountain College following World War II (when Asawa and her family were interned in a concentration camp because of their Japanese heritage) she embraced what her teacher and lifelong friend Josef Albers called “the meander curved line.” Then, in the 1950s she visited Toluca, Mexico, where she observed local artisans forming baskets in a mesh of interlocking loops. Asawa’s signature was applying this technique to wire, a material that had also been used by the military to build camp fences, developing a unique language of open and closed forms and beginning a lifelong journey of transforming a functional technique and modest industrial materials into poetic works of art.

In this video for Bloomberg Connects, curator Bobbye Tigerman anticipates the ever-shifting interplay of Asawa’s wire hanging and the changing light of its upcoming location in the David Geffen Galleries. “This gallery is suffused with natural north-facing light and brings together works for which light, and in this case shadow, are integral elements,” she said. “The flaring forms enclose empty space, as integral to the work as the looped metal wire itself, and will cast dramatic shadows on the concrete walls.”

“We hope that the works in this gallery will inspire you to take your time, to slow down, and to consider your surroundings in a different light,” she continued. Visitors will be able to linger and observe the interaction between Asawa’s Untitled and the Los Angeles light, the other works in the gallery, and the building itself when the David Geffen Galleries open in 2026.