Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, this groundbreaking milestone event highlights the birth of the Los Angeles art scene post-World War II and illustrates how the city became a phenomenal force in the greater Art World.
Considered the largest collaborative art project ever in Southern California, “Pacific Standard Time” includes not one, but three of Long Beach’s cultural institutions: Long Beach Museum of Art, Museum of Latin American Art and University Art Museum.
“Long Beach played an enormously important role in what was one of the most exciting and vibrant periods of modern American art,” the Getty Foundation material says.
Beginning this Saturday, Sept. 10, University Art Museum presents “Peace Press Graphics 1967-1987: Art in the Pursuit of Social Change,” a survey of the press’s work and their connections to artist collectives of the time.
Co-curated by Ilee Kaplan and Carol Wells, “Peace Press Graphics” will feature 50 to 75 posters from the press’ archive along with works on paper illustrating themes and issues such as feminist causes, workers’ rights, civil liberties, anti-nuclear protests, environmental concerns and anti-war demonstrations.
“This is an unprecedented moment in Southern California art history,” said UAM director, Christopher Scoates. “This series of Pacific Standard Time exhibitions, collaborations and programs will provide curators and scholars alike an amazing opportunity to showcase and highlight the groundbreaking and innovative work that has been made here on the West Coast for decades but doesn’t always get the critical attention it rightly deserves.”
Opening Sept. 18 at Museum of Latin American Art, “MEX/LA: ‘Mexican’ Modernism(s) In Los Angeles, 1930-1985” addresses the little-known influence of Mexico on modernism.
“’MEX/LA’ focuses on the construction of different notions of ‘Mexicanidad’ within modernist and contemporary art created in Los Angeles,” states MOLAA’s material. “This is the place where Siqueiros and Orozco made some of their first murals and Los Angeles is the capital of Chicano art.”
Lastly, on Oct. 7, Long Beach Museum of Art will present “Exchange and Evolution: World Wide Video Long Beach 1974-1999,” which explores and analyzes the importance that video played in the history of Southern California contemporary art, focusing especially on the international video artists working and exhibiting in the LBMA video production and exhibition program.
“I’m thrilled that Long Beach’s three art museums will play such important roles in this initiative, joining dozens of prestigious artistic institutions from across Southern California,” said LBMA director Ron Nelson. “‘Exchange and Evolution’ will draw from (the museum’s) internationally-acclaimed video archive to serve as a perfect complement to (these) important exhibitions.”
To say that “Pacific Standard Time” is important to Southern California is an understatement.
This is a major endeavor uniting cultural institutions of every size and type, exploring the city’s rise of Los Angeles Pop art, post-minimalism, modernist architecture, the African American L.A. Rebellion, feminist activities of the Woman’s Building, the Chicano art movement, Japanese American design, ceramic arts and the pioneering work of artist’s collectives.
Nothing this comprehensive has ever been seen in Los Angeles, generating an air of excitement throughout the entire city.
Eye On Art will report on each Long Beach-based exhibit over the next few weeks.
