Group and Solo Exhibitions at More Than 65 Art Galleries Complement Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA’s Robust Schedule of Museum Exhibitions and Public Programs

More than 65 art galleries in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California will participate in Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the Getty-led exploration of Latin American and Latino art that launches on September 15, 2017, and runs through January 2018. Complementing PST: LA/LA’s expansive roster of exhibitions, performances, and public programs at more than 70 museums and cultural institutions, participating galleries will present more than 90 group and solo exhibitions, artist-curated projects, and installations in Downtown Los Angeles, Culver City, Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, and beyond. Throughout the four-month initiative, a vibrant cross-section of emerging and established galleries will join in celebrating Latin American and Latino artists, and will bring works to the region by both internationally-known artists who will be shown on the West Coast or in the United States for the first time and emerging talent from across Latin America and the U.S.

Jim Cuno, President of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said, “Our ambition is to reveal on an unprecedented scale the diversity and complexity of Latin American and Latino art by looking at key historical moments, movements, and figures, as well as at the variety of contemporary practices that are so abundant today. We are thrilled that the participating galleries will add new insights on modern and contemporary art to the Pacific Standard Time initiative.”

“The participation of Southern California’s galleries in Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a tremendous opportunity to learn more about Latin American and Latino art and design, and how they have impacted Los Angeles as a major art center,” said Shaun Caley Regen, Founder of the Los Angeles-based gallery Regen Projects. “This will be a celebration, and an occasion for museums and galleries to introduce a range of modern and contemporary art to visitors from around the world. “

Artists who have gained international prominence, but whose works have never been seen on the West Coast or in the United States, will be shown in several exhibitions. Interiors at Gagosian will bring together highlights from the last 20 years of work by the renowned mid-career artist Adriana Varejão, whose pieces reflect on the rich yet conflicted history and culture of her native Brazil. Transbarroco, Varejão's only multi-channel video installation to date, shot in various locations in Brazil, will be shown for the first time in the U.S. Blum & Poe will present Solange Pessoa’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Pessoa emerged in the Brazilian art scene during the 1980s, creating sculptures, installations, performances, drawings, and videos with non-traditional materials such as hair, leather, fabric, and other organic matter, all of which will be represented in the installation. Buenos Aires-based artist Ad Minoliti, whose paintings, videos, and sculptures explore the relationship between eroticism, queer theory, history, and geometry, will make her Los Angeles debut at Cherry and Martin with an exhibition of new works. 

Several participating galleries are working directly with artists to curate or conceptualize their exhibitions. At Regen Projects, artists Abraham Cruzvillegas and Gabriel Kuri will co-curate Primordial Saber Tararear Proverbiales Sílabas Tonificantes Para Sublevar Tecnocracias Pero Seguir Tenazmente Produciendo Sociedades Tántricas. The show will examine the influence of the Latin American diaspora through the work of artists living and working beyond the geographical limits of Latin America, encouraging a reevaluation of the region’s art, borders, and identity. Curated by Mexican photographer Alejandro Cartagena, Tell Me a Story: Contemporary Mexican Photography at Kopeikin Gallery will include work by Mariela Sancari, Karla Leyva, Aglae Cortés, Rodrigo Ramos, José Luis Cuevas, Juan Carlos Coppel, and Fernando Gallegos. Presenting traditional photo-based works as well as site-specific installations, the exhibition shows the breadth of styles and subjects in contemporary Mexican photography, and how young artists are addressing the current social and political situation in their country.

The work of Gilbert “Magu” Luján, a member of the legendary Los Angeles Chicano arts collective Los Four—which also included Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, and Robert de la Rocha—will be the focus of the solo exhibition Gilbert "Magu" Luján: Tracking Magulandia at Craig Krull Gallery. Luján's iconography of mythical, fanciful creatures and cultural oddities will be traced to their sources in traditional Mexican folklore and Pre-Columbian art. The gallery show will complement Aztlán to Magulandia: The Journey of Chicano artist Gilbert ‘Magu’ Luján at the University Art Galleries, UC Irvine, the artist’s first museum survey.

Christopher Grimes Gallery looks at a key figure in a new generation of artists from Chile with the work of Gianfranco Foschino, who has developed a body of work that blurs the lines between cinema and photography. One gallery will show a series of landscapes he recorded on video by setting up a fixed camera and capturing the subtle movements that occur in front of the lens. Filmed from a distance, the scene increases in intensity as the minutes pass by with no sign of the narrative we have come to expect from video. Additional solo exhibitions of note include Christina Fernandez at Gallery Luisotti; Ken Gonzalez-Day at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, and Jorge Méndez Blake at 1301PE. Additionally, Commonwealth and Council will show the work of Carolina Caycedo, Beatriz Cortez, Clarissa Tossin, and Gala Porras-Kim, all of whom are featured in one or more PST: LA/LA partner exhibitions.

M+B will present Pedro Friedeberg, featuring a selection of the Mexico City-based artist’s work across a range of media, including paintings, graphic prints and sculptures. With a career spanning over six decades, Friedeberg is represented in prominent museum collections worldwide. Friedeberg's work will be included in the PST: LA/LA exhibitions Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915–1985 at LACMA and Another Promised Land: Anita Brenner's Mexico at the Skirball Cultural Center.

Many of the participating galleries are mounting ambitious group exhibitions. Box LA will present Dysfunctional Formulas of Love, a selection of works by artists from Colombia that address historical colonialism and daily micro-fascism in their country. Mixografia’s From Mexico City to LA: A Visual History of Graphic Art will offer a sweeping look at the history of printmaking in Mexico throughout the 20th century, exploring the ongoing conversation between Mexican printmaking and contemporary graphic art in Latin America and Southern California. As part of a collaboration with LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) and their PST: LA/LA commission of a new work by Guadalajara-based artist Jose Dávila, Kohn Gallery is organizing a group exhibition of mid-career artists, including Jose Dávila and other artists living and working in Guadalajara, such as Gonzalo Lebrija, Eduardo Sarabia, and Jorge Méndez Blake.

Coinciding with Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA are the launches of two new projects featuring Latin American-based galleries. ProyectosLA will feature artists from 20 premier galleries from Latin America including Instituto de Visión (Bogotá), joségarcia,mx (Mexico City), and Revolver (Buenos Aires), in a 20,000-square-foot converted warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. In addition, Ruberta, a new collaborative exhibition space in Glendale shared by Galería Agustina Ferreyra (Mexico City), Lodos (Mexico City), Proyectos Ultravioleta (Guatemala City), CARNE (Bogotá), and bwsmx (Mexico City), will open its inaugural exhibition, El eje del mal, in September.  

The participating gallery program is a component of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, and is organized by ForYourArt, a collaborative platform for artists, institutions, and patrons.

Complete information about participating galleries, exhibitions, and schedules will be available online at www.pacificstandardtime.org in early August.