CLOSE AD ×

Pacific Standard Time initiative reveals slate of architecturally-focused exhibitions

PST: LA/LA

Pacific Standard Time initiative reveals slate of architecturally-focused exhibitions

The Getty-sponsored initiative, Pacific Standard Time, has released a partial list of the exhibitions associated with next year’s upcoming installment of its Southern California-wide arts extravaganza. Held every two to three years since 2011, the upcoming Pacific Standard Time installment for 2017 will focus squarely on facilitating cross-cultural artistic pollination by showcasing artworks and research from North and South America in the Los Angeles area.

Pacific Standard Time is being presented by more than 70 partners located within a California area spanning Santa Barbara to the north, Palm Springs to the east, and San Diego to the south. Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (PST:LA/LA), as next year’s initiative is known, aims to utilize the Southland area as a staging ground for the provocative presentation of works hailing from regions of the continent that feed into L.A.’s multicultural expanse. According to a promotional Youtube clip for the project, “A single form of artistic expression can be born in one place and reshape an entire region thousands of miles away. That’s the power of Latin American and Latino Art’s influence on Los Angeles,” adding, “It’s time for Southern California to turn a spotlight on its cultural and artistic roots.”

Though the exhibitions presented will cover topics as diverse as luxury goods from the pre-Columbian Americas to post-World War II utopias in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela, PST:LA/LA’s program also aims to showcase a variety of architectural- and design-related exhibitions that touch on critical architectural issues and their impact on art.

The Getty Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) are doing much of the heavy lifting in this department, with LACMA presenting multiple architecturally-related shows. LACMA’s Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915–1985  will look at the exchange of architectural dialogues between California and Mexico and examine how the Spanish Colonial, Pre-Columbian Revivals, Craftsman, and Modernist architectural movements played a role in defining each locale throughout the 20th century.

The museum’s Home—So Different, So Appealing, exhibition—part of a collaboration with Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and organized by the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles—aims to present an “alternative narrative of postwar and contemporary art by showcasing the work of Latino-American and Latin American artists from the late 1950s to the present who have used the idea of “home” as a grounding feature in their work.”

LACMA will also play host to A Universal History of Infamy, a collective exhibition of more than 15 artists and collectives who have developed multi-disciplinary projects while attending residency programs organized by the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, California, including the work of Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa and his A Brief History of Architecture in Guatemala from 2013. 

The Getty Research Institute‘s Urban Transfer(s): Building the Latin American Metropolis from Independence to the Threshold of Modernism will consist of a visual survey of the growth experienced by Latin American cities between the 1920s and today, tracing a narrative arc spanning from the decolonization period of the late 19th century to contemporary urban conditions for the metropolises that now dot the continent.

The Palm Springs Art Museum will hold Living Architecture: Lina Bo Bardi and Albert Frey, a comparative look at the work of Brazilian Modernist paragon Lina Bo Bardi and Southern California architect Albert Frey. Bo Bardi translated Frey’s text, Living Architecture for Domus in 1959 and each helmed practices that engaged with Modernism in architecture as well as furniture and urban design.

The Craft and Folk Art Museum will show The U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility, a collection of work by individuals who grapple with the U.S.-Mexico border wall in their work, featuring work of artists and designers like Teddy Cruz, Adrian Esparza, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, and Ana Serrano.

Last but not least, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery will hold Learning from Latin America: Art, Architecture, and Visions of Modernism a collection of work from Brazilian, Cuban, Mexican, and Venezuelan artists who have engaged with the contested legacies of Modern architecture in their work.

To explore the growing list of exhibitions, visit the Pacific Standard Time website here.

CLOSE AD ×