Pacific Standard Time. Art in Los Angeles 1950-1980

The exhibition project Pacific Standard Time. Art in Los Angeles 1950-1980 traces the development of the Los Angeles art scene during the post-war period, when the city on the Pacific hosted an impressively varied and versatile art scene, thus proving that it was more than Hollywood and a sprawling metropolis in the land of sunshine and palm trees. The mega show – over 60 institutions and galleries in Los Angeles were involved – is taking the two main core exhibitions of the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute to Europe. The sole European venue is the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (Germany).

Pacific Standard Time features internationally esteemed artists such as John Baldessari, David Hockney, Edward Kienholz or Ed Ruscha as well as protagonists that are yet to be discovered like the abstract painters Helen Lundeberg and Karl Benjamin, the ceramicists Ken Price and John Mason, and sculptors such as De Wain Valentine.

The exhibition is structured both chronologically and thematically, comprising six sections that reflect the entire spectrum of the art trends that sprang up simultaneously in Los Angeles. Abstract works – ceramic sculptures and paintings of bleak clarity – are to be seen in the first section. The second section shows assemblage sculptures and collages by artists like George Herms, Wallace Berman and Ed Bereal. The third section documents the rise of Los Angeles to become an important art centre, while the fourth shows paintings by internationally recognized Los Angeles artists as Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney and Ed Ruscha.

The fifth section examines works that have arisen out of a collision between art and technology, such as a sculpture by DeWain Valentine or a canvas by Mary Corse. We are also introduced to a group of artists whose works show traces of their formation, such as those of Joe Goode, Allan McCollum and Ed Moses, a casting-resin work by Peter Alexander, or a fibre-glass sculpture by Bruce
Nauman.

Date: until June 10.
Location: Martin-Gropius-Bau. Niederkirchnerstraße 7. Corner Stresemannstr. 110
10963 Berlin. Germany.
Opening hours: from Wednesday to Monday from 10am to 7pm.