With more than 800 artists participating in more than 70 exhibitions, PST ART launched this week across the Southern California region. A Getty initiative (formerly known as Pacific Standard Time), the theme of this year’s edition is “Art & Science Collide,” offering a groundbreaking exploration of the intersection of art and science.
PST ART partners span from Santa Barbara to Palm Springs and San Diego, with a large concentration of exhibitions in Los Angeles, including All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace at REDCAT. During the next five months, PST ART’s public programs explore a variety of subjects, including ancient cosmologies, Indigenous science fiction, environmental justice, and the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence.
More than a dozen CalArtians will be exhibiting work under the umbrella of PST ART at institutions such as the Hammer Museum, ICA LA, Wende Museum, and the Autry Museum.
The current list of PST ART exhibitions featuring CalArtians includes:
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles presents Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, organized by guest co-curators Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake. Featuring work by CalArts alums Sandy Rodriguez (Art BFA 97) and Clarissa Tossin (Art MFA 09), the exhibition considers environmental art practices that address the climate crisis and anthropogenic disasters and their inescapable intersection with issues of equity and social justice. The show is on view through Jan. 5, 2025.
The Wende Museum, Culver City
CalArts alum Sadie Barnette (Art BFA 06) will showcase her work in Counter/Surveillance: Control, Privacy, Agency at the The Wende Museum. The exhibition explores the history of surveillance technologies, from Cold War-era practices to modern concerns about privacy and government control. Featuring artifacts and artworks, including facial recognition training materials from East German border guards in the 1970s and 1980s, the show highlights how artists have responded to or evaded these technologies. The exhibition opens on Saturday, Oct. 12 and runs through April 6, 2025.
Oceanside Museum of Art / Orange County Museum of Art
Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean is a multivenue group exhibition organized by the Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA), with additional presentations at Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and Crystal Cove Conservancy. Ceramic works by CalArts alum Liz Larner (Art BFA 85) are on view at OCMA now through Jan. 5, 2025, while works by CalArtians Paul Rosero Contreras (Art MFA 15) and Ohan Breiding (Art MFA 12) are on view at OMA through Jan. 19, 2025.
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA)
Through an intersectional, trans-inclusive lens, Scientia Sexualis rethinks what sex, gender, and the body can be. Featuring work by CalArts alum Gala Porras-Kim (Art MFA 09), faculty emeritus Millie Wilson, and former faculty Cauleen Smith, Youn Joon Kwak, and Candice Lin, the show examines the difficult history of science as it relates to racialized and gendered assumptions about the sexual body, while reclaiming scientific methods to explore speculative technologies of transformation, embodied forms of knowledge, and radical care. Scientia Sexualis opens on Oct. 5, 2024, and runs through March 2, 2025.
Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena
From the Ground Up explores diverse technologies, histories of contested spaces, and traditional understandings of nature through artworks that imagine alternative, sustainable futures. Participating artists include CalArts alums Charmaine Bee (Art MFA 17) and Beatriz Cortez (Art MFA 15), and School of Art faculty Mercedes Dorame. The exhibition is on view through Feb. 23, 2025.
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD)
Works by CalArtians Nayland Blake (Art MFA 84), Barbara Bloom (Art BFA 72), Liz Larner (Art BFA 85), Kaari Upson (Art BFA 04, MFA 07), and John Boskovich (Art BFA 85), and Felix Gonzalez-Torres (former faculty) are featured in For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability, the first exhibition to survey themes of illness and impairment in American art from the 1960s up to the COVID-19 era. The show—which runs Thursday, Sept. 19, through Feb. 2, 2025—expands across seven galleries at MCASD, and is accompanied by a rotating program of film and video.
CSU Dominguez Hills University Art Gallery, Carson
Brackish Water Los Angeles explores the ecosystems, infrastructures, and politics surrounding brackish water—the meeting point of salt and fresh waters. Running through Dec. 14, the exhibition features works by CalArts alum Catherine Opie (Art MFA 88), School of Art faculty Mercedes Dorame, and Chouinard alum Laddie John Dill (BFA 68). The show delves into the broader concept of “in-betweenness,” addressing themes of access, inclusion, ecological racism, and the cultural and class dynamics along Los Angeles’ waterways.
The Brick, Los Angeles
Life on Earth: Art and Ecofeminism is a group exhibition showcasing four decades of ecofeminist art. Featuring CalArts alums Alicia Piller (Art MFA 19), Aviva Rahmani (Art BFA 74), and Kite (Music BFA 14), the exhibition explores themes such as intersectional environmentalism, social ecologies, Indigenous rights, reproductive rights, and speculative futures through a diverse range of media. Life on Earth is on view through Dec. 21.
Brand Library and Art Center, Glendale
JPL, managed by Caltech for NASA, in collaboration with the city of Glendale, will present Blended Worlds: Experiments In Interplanetary Imagination at the Brand Library and Art Center. The exhibit, featuring 12 artists including sculptor Larry Bell (Chouinard 59) and performance artist Moon Ribas, explores human relationships with nature and how empathy can inspire new ways to nurture the planet. Blended Worlds opens on Saturday, Sept. 21, and runs through Jan. 4, 2025.
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
On Nov. 16, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents Noon to Midnight: Field Recordings, a 12-hour festival of new music with live performances and art installations throughout the Walt Disney Concert Hall campus. Curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and CalArts alum Ellen Reid (Music MFA 11), the event features works by visionary composers, performed by Los Angeles-based ensembles and solo artists. The festival explores how recordings of natural and built environments are used in music for healing, meditation, climate activism, political expression, and pure listening enjoyment.
Explore all PST ART exhibitions on the official website.
Google Map with the above institutions and galleries
Related reading: REDCAT Presents All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace with PST ART
