Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

With about 130,000 items from antiquity to modern times, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art claims to be the biggest art museum in the western United States. The great collections of Asian, Latin American, and Islamic art are particularly noteworthy.

Urban Light, the most iconic of the museum, is a sculpture by Chris Burden made up of 202 cast-iron street lights taken from across Los Angeles that has quickly become one of the city’s indelible landmarks over the past decade. LACMA's collections include modernist masterpieces, large-scale contemporary works (including Richard Serra's massive swirling sculpture and Burden's buzzing, the hypnotic tangle of toy cars in Metropolis II), traditional Japanese screens, and by far L.A.'s most consistently fantastic special exhibitions. Tickets must be purchased ahead of time. For L.A. County residents, it's free after 3 p.m. on weekdays. The outdoor artworks Urban Light and Levitated Mass do not require admission.

Address: 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
Website: http://www.lacma.org/