The Un-Private Collection: Distinct Encounters through Object Making—Kelly Akashi + Sharif Farrag + Guadalupe Rosales
Overview
In conjunction with the special exhibition, Robert Therrien: This is a Story, The Broad is organizing two discussions to contextualize today’s L.A. sculptors as part of a storied history. The starting points for these discussions are two connected yet contrasting topics: Distinct Encounters through Object Making and World Building.
Saturday, November 22, 2025: World Building
Friday, February 27, 2026: Distinct Encounters through Object Making
Los Angeles has been the home of important, ambitious sculptors for decades. The city has long been a place where art mixes freely with architecture, aerospace, and other cutting-edge industries, Hollywood, communities, countercultures, and undergrounds. L.A. sculptors have intersected with global movements including Minimalism, Light and Space, Land Art, and Assemblage, and have incubated hybrid, experimental practices that have run against the grain of global trends.
The conversation features artist Kelly Akashi, who is deftly skilled at working across diverse materials and explores the impermanence of the natural world; artist Sharif Farrag, who creates organized chaos through his maximalist ceramic sculptures; and artist Guadalupe Rosales, whose artworks archive and celebrate the collective memories of Chicano youth culture of the ‘90s.
Distinct Encounters through Object Making will take place during Frieze Weekend in February and will consider sculpture, inviting focused, isolated encounters with viewers, while World Building looks at sculpture as an immersive, often communal experience. Both discussions align current sculptural practice in L.A. within its history, its capacity for production and fabrication, and the city’s inspiration as a muse.
The conversation will be moderated by Ed Schad, Curator of Robert Therrien: This is a Story.
Headshots courtesy of the artists; Artwork credits from L-R: Robert Therrien, No title (stacked plates, white), 2009. Plastic, urethane foam, automotive paint. No title (large black bow), 2015. Japan color on metal. No title (table leg), 2010. Wood and metal. All artworks courtesy of Robert Therrien Estate. Photos by Josh White / JWPictures.com
Tickets to this event include access to Robert Therrien: This is a Story, The Broad’s third floor rotating collection galleries, and The Shop at The Broad during regular museum operating hours from Saturday, February 21, 2026 through Sunday, March 8, 2026.
Tickets to this event do not include access to Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), which must be booked separately.
To learn more and plan your trip, visit Know Before You Go & FAQ. Visitor policies are subject to change.
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Kelly Akashi
Kelly Akashi (b. 1983, Los Angeles) received her MFA from the University of Southern California after attending Otis College of Art and Design (BFA) and Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Her work has been shown at the Hammer Museum (Made in L.A. Biennial, a, the, though, only); David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; The Jewish Museum, New York; Shanaynay, Paris; White Flag Projects, Saint Louis; Tomorrow Gallery, New York (solo); Michael Jon & Alan, Miami (solo); Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis; and Château Shatto, Los Angeles. Akashi most recently opened a solo exhibition with Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles and has been written about in Artforum, Los Angeles Times, Kaleidoscope, art ltd, and Mousse Magazine. She will be exhibiting new work in a group exhibition curated by Franklin Melendez at Antenna Space, Shanghai this spring. Kelly Akashi was born in Los Angeles where she lives and works.
Photo courtesy of the artist
Sharif Farrag
Sharif Farrag was born in 1993 in Reseda, California and received a BFA from the University of Southern California in 2018. Farrag was an artist in residence at California State University, Long Beach’s Center for Contemporary Ceramics from 2018 to 2020, and in 2019 he was awarded a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His solo exhibitions include François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; In Lieu, Los Angeles; The Pit, Los Angeles; and 356 Mission, Los Angeles. Farrag lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Photo courtesy of the artist
Guadalupe Rosales
Guadalupe Rosales is best known for her community-generated archival projects, “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” on social media. The projects manifested in 2015 from the under/misrepresentation and historical erasure of Latin@/x communities in Southern California. These community-generated projects begin with an open invitation to various Latin@/x communities to share personal images and memories that create visual narratives that celebrate identities and historicize subcultures.
In her studio practice, Guadalupe works with sculpture, photography, video, sound, drawing, and community-based projects and collaborations, and the archive, centering on the creation of immersive and sensorial spaces to activate memory and evoke a collective experience and embodiment. These spaces conjure up emotions as well as collective feelings of longing that reside in our bodies and remain as living archives. Here, she wants us to consider the body as archives and a locus that preserves, carries, moves, and transforms memory but also intervenes in the continuum of a life archived. The purpose is to uplift private experiences and create space for them to be shared, to see what is concealed and collectively create a multidimensional experience.
Guadalupe’s studio also houses and preserves a physical archive of Chicano/Latinx ephemera from the 1970s to the late-1990s, including but not limited to magazines, prison art and letters, posters and flyers from the Los Angeles underground backyard-party and rave scenes of the 1990s.
Her forthcoming book, EAST OF THE RIVER, will be published by One World, Summer 2026.
Photo courtesy of the artist
About The Un-Private Collection
The Un-Private Collection is an ongoing series of public programs The Broad began in September 2013. The series introduces audiences to the museum’s 2,000-work contemporary art collection by showcasing stories behind the collection, the collectors and the artists. Since launching the program, The Broad has brought together a variety of artists whose works are in the Broad collection in conversation with cultural leaders, including Mark Bradford with Katy Siegel, Shirin Neshat with Christy MacLear, Jeff Koons with John Waters, Takashi Murakami with Pico Iyer, Eric Fischl with Steve Martin, John Currin with James Cuno, Kara Walker with Ava DuVernay and architect Elizabeth Diller with Eli Broad, Joanne Heyler and Paul Goldberger. Talks have been held at venues throughout Los Angeles, making the programming available to audiences across the city. Conversations are live-streamed and full videos of past talks are available online. The Un-Private Collection series is part of the Broad collection’s 30-year mission to make contemporary art accessible to the widest possible audience.
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