California Stakes Its Claim In The Art World

For the next 6 months, Suuthern California will be hosting 170 separate exhibitions at 130 separate museums and galleries stretching from San Diego to Los Angeles to Santa Barbara.

The festival, known as Pacific Standard Time, is a showcase of art in Los Angeles stretching between 1945-1980; it will cover the post war outpouring of art from the Southern California region and is set to run for half a year. The show is an accounting of the emergence of the region as an art capital in the same league as New Yrok, Berlin and London.

Each museum will be showing an art collection that will surely help to cement California as a cultural Mecca for the art world. The Getty will showcase pieces by Ed Ruscha and George Herms and the Los Angeles COunty Museum of Art will be featuring Chicano performance and conceptual art group ASCO.

California has certainly beencultivating their artistic persona. After the success of the Graffitti based art show at the Museum of Contemprary Art and the Tim Burton show at LA County, young artists have begun to flock to the state, formerly known primarily for its tinsel. With such prestigious art schools such as the California Institute, UCLA and the Art Center College of Design, young talent will certainly find the guidance needed to grow.

“Los Angeles just presents itself as a fresh and new story — people will be interested in hearing some different narrative they haven’t heard before,” said Thomas E. Crow, an art historian. “And because so much of the art is really, really good, that will sustain the interest in these new narratives.”

Source: The New York Times