Review: At LACMA, a rambling theme show of recent contemporary art acquisitions jumps the rails

LACMA has organized a show of 39 recent acquisitions of contemporary art, some shared with other L.A. museums.

“Grounded” is a theme show, said to explore “how human experience is embedded in the land,” although much of the work, which is often bland, defies that limited categorization.

The exhibition is installed at LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum for an unusually long run — eight months, on view until late June.

“Grounded,” the newly opened exhibition of relatively recent acquisitions of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, starts out setting a very high bar. It’s a compelling launch, even if the spotty show that unfolds in the next several rooms falls apart.

Grounded, it isn’t.

“Land Deeds,” a 1970 work by Iranian American artist Siah Armajani (1939-202