LOS ANGELES — This year marks a veritable museum-palooza as Los Angeles debuts four new major arts complexes, with three in the wings likely to open in advance of the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Immerse yourself in a psychedelic explosion at Meow Wolf, plan an afternoon liaison with Van Gogh at LACMA's new David Geffen Galleries, inhale the scent of nature inside Refik Anadol's AI arts museum, Dataland, or simply geek out over George Lucas' jaw-dropping collection of "Star Wars" memorabilia.

Whatever your arts craving may be, this astoundingly rich new lineup of new local museums has you covered.

LACMA's David Geffen Galleries

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's David Geffen Galleries are set to debut this April to members, before opening for general admission at the beginning of May. The $720 million Geffen Galleries will display 2,500-3,000 objects from LACMA's collection.

The building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, is described by supporters as a "concrete sculpture" and will host 90 exhibition galleries across 110,000 square feet. The Wilshire Boulevard museum's inaugural exhibition will organize artwork by the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea instead of by medium or period.

"The idea is for you to make your own path — not to speak at you, but to let you wander like you would through a park or a place," LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan said in an interview with The Times. "That change in attitude, and how the building is built, is really exciting."

Some of the most-anticipated works on display include Georges de La Tour's "The Magdalen With the Smoking Flame" (1640), Henri Matisse's "La Gerbe" (1953) and Vincent Van Gogh's "Tarascon Stagecoach" (1888).

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

After more than 10 years of anticipation, George Lucas and Mellody Hobson's museum will open in Exposition Park this September. With over 10,000 square feet of galleries, the museum will feature a wide array of artwork and pop culture ephemera, including Lucas' personal trove of "Star Wars" film franchise treasures, "Peanuts" comic strips, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" illustrations, a Richard Sargent painting and covers of the Saturday Evening Post.

Lucas donated his collection to curate the Lucas Archives, which, in addition to "Star Wars," will encompass props and production art from Lucasfilm projects, such as the "Indiana Jones" franchise.

One of the museum's defining features is its massive green-roof garden designed by Mia Lehrer and her landscape architecture firm Studio-MLA.

"This brings everything together," Lehrer said in an interview with The Times. "Design, ecology, storytelling, infrastructure, community. It's the fullest expression of what landscape can be."

Meow Wolf

Meow Wolf's L.A. location will reimagine a '90s movie theater with its takeover of the Cinemark at West L.A.'s Howard Hughes entertainment complex outside Culver City. Meow Wolf's sixth permanent exhibition comes on the heels of the immersive art creator's 52,000-square-foot psychedelic art installation in Las Vegas, which was disguised as a dystopian grocery store called Omega Mart and promptly went viral on TikTok.

Complete with sci-fi elements, a meditative space and a 30-foot-tall mushroom tower, Meow Wolf's new location will open at the end of 2026. Although organizers have kept much of the exhibition under wraps, visitors can expect to be transfixed by a thoroughly Los Angeles tale.

"It's cool that we're creating a story about a pilgrimage, because L.A. is that for so many artists, especially people involved in storytelling," Shakti Howeth, Meow Wolf's creative director, told The Times. "It's one of those places that's built on layers and layers of dreams, and we're really exploring that here. Not only dreams but broken dreams — the compost that can happen when you digest broken dreams."

Refik Anadol's Dataland

Opening this spring at the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A., Dataland dubs itself the world's first museum of AI arts. Turkish American artist Refik Anadol designed his own AI model, named the Large Nature Model, which only sources material with permission from original creators, making it what Anadol calls "ethical" AI. Partners include the Smithsonian and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

"I'm calling this new art form not AR, not VR, not XR — so we are still finding a name for it. The best name so far, and people love it, is generative reality," Anadol told The Times.

Dataland will feature five galleries, including the Infinity Room, which Anadol first created in 2014 as a student at UCLA. In another exhibit, he trained an AI model on half a million scents and built a machine to push those scents into the gallery to create a totally immersive viewing experience.

Opening Later

The Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center of California

Slated to complete construction in downtown Glendale in late 2026, the 51,000-square-foot Armenian American Museum has been in the works for more than a decade. With a $67 million budget, the museum will include permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as an auditorium, learning center, archives collection and a demonstration kitchen.

The museum is an initiative of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee Western US, and planning began as the group prepared to mark the the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 2015. The museum is adorned with the 36 letters of the Armenian alphabet and a glass hazarashen skylight, inspired by traditional roofs in homes across the Armenian Highlands.

"The Armenian American Museum was once an idea, then a vision, and today is rising before our eyes," museum Executive Chairman Berdj Karapetian said in a statement. "This progress is the result of an extraordinary collective effort by Armenians and non-Armenians here in California, across the United States and around the world."

The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center

A solid opening date has not yet been announced, but the $400 million Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center in Exposition Park is busily preparing for liftoff. Construction on the building began in 2022. The shiny new building will be home to the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, Kent Kresa Space Gallery and the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, which will host the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Endeavour will be displayed in launch position, making it the tallest authentic spacecraft displayed vertically in the world, with a height of 20 stories. One of three surviving space shuttles, Endeavour made 25 successful missions into space.

The center is also expected to have 20 planes and jets, including a Boeing 747, a mock flight deck and a pair of introductory films produced by J.J. Abrams' company Bad Robot, one of which will end with a simulated launch.

"It is an amazing experience, and we want to really build it up," Jeffrey N. Rudolph, president and chief executive of the California Science Center, told The Times. "It's not just about the hardware but about the people and the educational aspects."

The Broad expansion

Opening in 2028, the Broad expansion will contain 70% more gallery space, two outdoor courtyards, a live programming space and views of the museum's art storage vault. First announced in 2024, the $100 million addition is slated for completion before the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Located in downtown L.A., the expansion was deemed necessary after the museum significantly exceeded visitor projections. The new building will invert the existing Broad museum's architectural design, with a smooth, gray structure attached to the original construction.

"The idea is that it adds new facets to the visitor's journey through the expanded Broad," said Joanne Heyler, founding director and president of the Broad, in an interview with The Times. "In a way, the existing building is always sort of talking to you. And there will be a similar thing happening with the expansion, but just a slightly different conversation, like you're listening to its sibling."

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