What LACMA wants to hang next

Artist Jeff Koons and LACMA director Michael Govan on Thursday night unveiled their vision of the museum's new, more welcoming entryway off Wilshire — and the centerpiece is big and strange. Hanging over the entrance would be a 161-foot-tall sculpture that would feature a chugging, steaming but vertical replica of a locomotive, timed to start up and blow a whistle at noon, 3 pm and 6 pm every day. Govan enthused that the "Train" sculpture would be visible from downtown, Sunset Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway, Tom Christie reports on the LA Weekly website. It would look and sound like a real engine and be "an absolutely authentic visceral experience," Koons said. Govan told the Times that the Annenberg Foundation put up more than $1 million to study the idea, and both the director and artist want it to be a new L.A. icon on par with the Hollywood sign and to serve like the clock tower in a town square. If you detest the idea (or think it's cool), no rush. It's years off and won't be part of the 2008 opening of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA.

Rendering by Renzo Piano Building Workshop via LA Weekly