Latin America is an intrinsic part of Los Angeles' identity, and the Getty Foundation has decided to honor the people and cultures that inform the Spanish-turned-Mexican-turned-American city's roots.
The Getty is funding Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a multi-museum initiative to launch next fall that examines Latin American and Latino art and its influence on Southern California. The program was first announced back in 2014, with $5.5 million awarded in initial research grants, but the Getty Foundation announced another $8.45 million toward exhibition implementation at an event on Wednesday.
PST's biggest presence, unsurprisingly, will be at the Getty Center itself. The hilltop museum will host three exhibitions, including A New Narrative: Constructed Photography from Latin America, which focuses on fabricated imagery; Materiality and Postwar Latin American Art, which features landmark works from the geometric abstraction-heavy Colección Cisneros; and Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas.
But PST's main initiative is to foster exhibitions at museums around Southern California, with 43 cultural institutions between Santa Barbara and San Diego participating. Most notably, LACMA—which received $825,000 in total—will produce three exhibitions: a survey of modern design in California and Mexico, a solo show of Chicano artist Carlos Almaraz and a series of interdisciplinary works at LACMA and other venues, including Santa Monica's 18th Street Art Center.
Other exhibitions include examinations of radical female artists during the second-wave feminist era at the Hammer Museum, the short-lived bilingual newspaper La Raza at the Autry, contemporary Mexican border-inspired design at CAFAM and Latin American-inspired Disney films at the MAK Center.
PST isn't limited to only gallery-style exhibitions: The Music Center and the LA Phil will be conducting a series of musical programs, while the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is hosting a screening series focusing on Latino film culture.
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA will run from September 2017 to January 2018. It marks the third installment of the foundation's Pacific Standard Time series, following series on mid-century LA art in 2011 and modern architecture in 2013.
