Pacific Standard Time: L.A./L.A.
In the fall of 2011 Los Angeles celebrated the launch of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945—1980, an unprecedented collaboration of arts institutions across Southern California joining together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Yet it was 230 years earlier, in 1781, that the city of Los Angeles itself was born when El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles was founded as part of New Spain. Thus, while Los Angeles often represents the vanguard of contemporary culture in the United States, it is at the same time a Latin American city of long duration.
Today, nearly half of the population of Los Angeles has roots in Latin America, contributing to Southern California as a lively center of artistic production and a natural nexus of cultural creativity between North and South. In recent years a number of exhibitions in the Americas and Europe have offered an introduction to the original and varied heritage of Latin America and the Latin American diaspora. Now there is an opportunity for a broader and deeper examination of this art through a renewed collaboration by the Pacific Standard Time partners. In the process, Southern California will play a significant role in the research and presentation of Latin American art.
L.A./L.A. will encompass exhibitions about the artistic connections between Los Angeles and Latin America, about the relationships between Latin America and the rest of the world, about the history of exchange among Latin American countries, or about the Latin American diaspora. Potential new research and exhibition topics could span diverse media, styles, themes, and time periods. Exhibitions could focus on the contemporary scene or could extend back in time to examine the development of modernism, the colonial era, or Pre-Columbian art as well as its continuing influence on modern art. Media might range from painting and sculpture to film and video, from murals to ceramics, from architecture to graphic design, or from conceptual art to land art, to name just a few. Exhibitions may also encompass diverse approaches, from surveys of a specific art movement to tightly focused monographic shows. L.A./L.A. also offers the opportunity for Southern California institutions to collaborate on projects with their counterparts in Latin America.
November 4, 2013The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, USA