Getty announces public programs that span Southern California for PST ART: Art & Science Collide, opening September 15

Getty today announced full details of an ambitious slate of programs and events to accompany the more than 70 exhibitions that make up PST ART: Art & Science Collide, offering audiences in Southern California numerous pathways to experience, and participate in, what is now the nation’s largest arts initiative. Events will kick off on September 15 with a free monumental daytime fireworks performance at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, entitled WE ARE: Explosion Event for PST ART, by artist Cai Guo-Qiang.

The wildly diverse programs range from a runway fashion show featuring futuristic creations by Indigenous designers to a commemorative rocket launch of a replica of the Sputnik satellite, from a summit on climate change for high-school activists to the LA Phil and Master Chorale premiere of a multimedia work by Doug Aitken, from participatory workshops on synthetic bioengineering to an evening of deep-space communication hosted by comedian Reggie Watts and organized by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

“The dazzling spectrum of programs we’re announcing today will unite audiences in communal experiences across the region, and further animate the thematic exhibitions of Art & Science Collide,” said Katherine E. Fleming, President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “Designed for people of all ages and backgrounds, these programs will ensure that everyone can find something in Art & Science Collide to excite, illuminate, and engage.”

Highlights of the programs include:

Exploring Art & Science for Families

Getty will join with the internationally renowned Edinburgh Science organization to present a free, outdoor PST ART: Art x Science Family Festival at La Brea Tar Pits over the November 9 through 11 holiday weekend. Offering participatory hands-on workshops, roving demonstrations, a full slate of performances, and a celebratory atmosphere with music and food, the outdoor festival will bring the themes of Art & Science Collide to children ages 4 to 14 and their families, with activities that include:

• exploring and imagining distant exoplanets with JPL
• practicing traditional adobe building techniques with Craft Contemporary, and bringing them to life with a giant 3D printer
• performing surgery on life-like anatomical dummies and exploring the history of anatomical drawing
• and listening to Los Angeles band Quetzal performing Bestiario Musical, its 2014 concept album dedicated to animals in the LA urban landscape

Additional hands-on family activities at the festival will take place at the nearby Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, LACMA, and Craft Contemporary, along with seven exhibitions on display.

Other family-friendly programming will be presented as part of “community hubs” across Los Angeles County during PST ART organized by LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Lancaster Museum of Art & History, and LA Commons. In San Diego, the New Children’s Museum will host free family workshops throughout the fall inspired by the writings of Octavia E. Butler.

Looking Into the Future(s) with PST ART

Six leading Indigenous fashion designers—Jason Baerg, Orlando Dugi, Jontay Kahm, Caroline Monnet, Jamie Okuma, and Virgil Ortiz—will present their work on a runway at the Getty Center on September 30. Organized in collaboration with the Autry Museum, the runway show will celebrate the artists’ blend of innovative couture, ancestral knowledge, and future-forward style. Organized by fashion curator Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, this one-night-only event will bring to life looks on view at the Autry Museum’s Art & Science Collide exhibition Future Imaginaries: Indigenous Art, Fashion, Technology.

The Wende Museum will revisit yesterday’s future on October 4 when it re-creates the event that initiated the Space Age: the launch into orbit of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik on October 4, 1957. Designed and launched by participants in Stanford University’s Student Space Initiative, the satellite, like Sputnik itself, will send data back to Earth, which in this case will include news about Art & Science Collide.

In conjunction with its exhibition Emergence at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, Fathomers will present Henry Tan in a ceremony exploring the possibilities for extending the human lifespan through biotechnology; Corinne Okada Takara leading workshops about stewarding the planet through synthetic bioengineering; and the AfroRithm Futures Group in an evening of ritual dance that imagines how Black and Indigenous agricultural practices might shape an egalitarian, multi-planetary society.

American Artist joins LACMA Art + Technology Lab on November 3 for an event looking at the legacy of Octavia E. Butler and her 1993 novel Parable of the Sower, which unfolds in the imagined dystopian year of 2024. Drawing parallels between Butler’s fictional US presidential race and the impending real-world election, the event will also feature Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls and Rasheedah Phillips of Black Quantum Futurism.

The future of AI and the arts will be the subject of a day-long symposium on September 16 presented by USC Visions & Voices, inspired by Cai Guo-Qiang’s WE ARE: Explosion Event for PST ART. Pop-up film screenings will be held throughout the day, and lunch will be provided by Tigawok, powered by Next Robot AI Cooking Robot.

Ecological Engagements

The skies of Los Angeles will be monitored for air quality by pigeons wearing tiny sensor-equipped backpacks as part of LACE’s re-creation of the late artist Beatriz da Costa’s PIGEONBLOG, first in South LA (October 19) and then in and around Los Feliz (November 16).

In conjunction with its PST ART exhibition Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, The Hammer will present programs including an event with sculptor and fourth-generation beekeeper Garnett Puett during Bee Week (October 13–20), while Occidental College will open its rarely accessible Moore Lab of Zoology for public tours (October 6), revealing 65,000 rare birds and mammal species.

Self-Help Graphics & Art will co-host monthly Urban Garden Workshops at the Willowbrook Community Garden; Inglewood-based non-profit Crenshaw Dairy Mart will organize workshops and community events around its abolitionist pods: autonomously irrigated, solar-powered gardens in geodesic domes, which serve communities across LA County; and in What Water Wants, Clockshop and artist Rosten Woo will invite Angelenos to walk the L.A. River and reimagine their relationship to water, with a 30-minute audio experience that moves between a guided meditation and a speculative disaster movie.

Youth climate activists will come together for youth-driven solutions to the climate crisis in the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens’ Sustainable CHANGES Youth Summit, and talks, panels, and poetry presented in the Skirball Cultural Center’s UNSCORCHING THE EARTH: Repair through Intersectional Climate Activism.

On Stage with Art & Science Collide

JPL will open the door to deep-space communication in Blended Worlds: An Evening of Art, Science and Theater, a free event hosted at Glendale’s historic Alex Theater by Reggie Watts (October 5); and REDCAT, in collaboration with UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, will present Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits and Machines at the United Theater on Broadway, featuring experimental performances and installations by rafa esparza, MUXX collective, and a special guest headliner (December 7).

Quantum Vibrations, a free, four-part music series, will be presented in October and November at Debs Park (October 4), the Getty Center (October 17), La Brea Tar Pits (November 9), and the Ebell of Los Angeles (November 17). Artists including Black Quantum Futurism with Nicole Mitchell, Tania Candiani with Rogelio Sosa, Quetzal, and Claire Chase will consider music in scientific contexts and use music to explore topics including nuclear research, desert biomes, speculative world-making, and non-human music makers.

The practice of field recording—capturing audio outside the studio from sources as varied as underwater sounds, electromagnetic vibrations, or insect activity—will be the focus of LA Phil’s Noon to Midnight festival of new music at Walt Disney Concert Hall (November 16). The 12-hour event, including art installations, food trucks, and a beer garden, will feature well-known and emerging composers, performers, and ensembles and will have as its centerpiece the world premiere of Doug Aitken’s multimedia artwork Lightscape, accompanied by live performances by the LA Phil New Music Group and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Showcasing artists whose work reflects both the history of science and cutting-edge research, CaltechLive will present the performance series Opening Doors throughout the run of PST ART. Programs will include the biodrama Tesla: A Radio Play for the Stage by Dan Duling (October 4–6); HUANG YI & KUKA, a series of vignettes between live dancers from Huang Yi Studio and the robot KUKA (October 18–19); a choral concert by Tonality focused on the climate crisis (November 16); and Turing Tests, Apples, and Queens: Collective Storytelling Through Fairy Tales and Artificial Intelligence, an exploration of the life and work of Alan Turing performed by Invertigo Dance Theatre (December 6–7).

PST ART Weekends

Making PST ART a “festival of festivals,” PST ART Weekends will break up the map into regions perfect for exhibition-hopping. These regional weekends will also feature evenings with local vendors, special performances, and DJs selected by global radio platform NTS Radio. Each PST ART Weekend will also celebrate a grassroots environmental group that has inspired some of the work on view in Art & Science Collide.

Northeast LA & Pasadena (October 4–6): Friday night features a special outdoor performance by Black Quantum Futurism at the Audubon Center at Debs Park, including a hands-on workshop from USAL Project and NTS Radio DJs, while Saturday and Sunday feature more than fifteen partner events in galleries, on stage, and off the LA River.

West LA to South LA (October 19–20): A day-long Saturday event at Crenshaw Dairy Mart, also featuring special activations by LACE, will be followed by an evening block party at the Wende Museum, with a record store pop-up by In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi, local food trucks, Art & Science Collide programs, and more.

Orange County & Long Beach (November 2): With an emphasis on the Pacific Ocean and regional waterways, this weekend will feature workshops and events at the Orange County Museum of Art, Oceanside Museum of Art, Crystal Cove State Park, Cal State Dominguez Hills Art Gallery, and Fulcrum Arts at Chapman University, as well as Laguna Art Museum’s 12^th annual Art + Nature initiative.

Hollywood to Expo Park (November 16–17): PST ART’s unofficial “performance weekend” will include A Day of Quantum Listening with flutist Claire Chase and guests at the Ebell of Los Angeles; performances at Barnsdall Art Park from LA Dance Project, and the opening of NHM Commons at the Natural History Museum.

San Diego & La Jolla (November 23–24): Balboa Park’s partners (San Diego Museum of Art, Mingei, and ICA San Diego) will co-host a Saturday cross-park activation with music and hands-on workshops. At night, MCA San Diego will stay open late with DJs and drinks.

Downtown LA (December 7–8): REDCAT and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance will close out the PST ART Weekends with Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits and Machines. Other programs will take place at the Downtown Public Library, in the laboratory environment built by Fathomers at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, and in the galleries at MOCA.

The growing list of programs, including artist talks and exhibition openings, for PST ART: Art & Science Collide is accessible here.

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About PST ART: Art & Science Collide

Southern California’s landmark arts event Pacific Standard Time—now PST ART—returns in September 2024 with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science—past, present, and in the imaginable future. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, to share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world.

PST ART: Art & Science Collide follows Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (September 2017–January 2018) and Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980 (October 2011– March 2012). PST ART is presented by Getty. Lead partners are Bank of America, Alicia Miñana & Rob Lovelace, and the Getty Patron Program. Principal partners are Simons Foundation; Eva and Ming Hsieh, Co-Founders of Fulgent Genetics; and Peggy and Andrew Cherng, Co-Chairs and Co-CEOs of Panda Express. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit: pst.art.

Press materials about PST ART in English and Spanish are available here.

IMAGES (L to R):

1. Wake by Jill Johnson and David Poe. Photo by Josh S. Rose. © LA Dance Project.

2. Crenshaw Dairy Mart Weekly Somatics Centering Practice inside the Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod (prototype) for the Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship for Abolition and the Advancement of the Creative Economy (CDM-FAACE) Inaugural Cohort 2022–2023. Photographed from left to right: CDM Program Director Vic Quintanar, CDM Co-founder alexandre ali reza dorriz, CDM-FAACE 2022–2023 Inaugural Creative Projects Intern Aiyana Sha’niel, CDM-FAACE 2022–2023 Inaugural Fellow Autumn Breon, CDM-FAACE 2022–2023 Inaugural Fellow Oto-Abasi Attah, CDM-FAACE 2022–2023 Inaugural Program Intern Magic Udeh. 2023. Photographed by Gio Solis. Courtesy of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart.

3. Huang Yi & KUKA by Huang Yi (choreographer, dancer, and robotic programmer). Photo by Summer Yen. © Huang Yi Studio +.

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