Inside PST, Los Angeles’s Sprawling Art Extravaganza

With its endless swirl of parties and events, you might be forgiven for thinking that Art Basel Miami hosts the biggest art event in the United States. In fact, that honor goes to Los Angeles. PST ART, formerly known as Pacific Standard Time, only happens every five years, but it offers far more than anything a fair ever could. The latest iteration, which opened last week with a whirlwind of museum and gallery openings, features over 800 artists in more than 70 institutions all over the city, addressing one common theme: “Art & Science Collide.”

It’s an extremely topical subject, whether it pertains to climate change, environmental justice, or artificial intelligence; what’s fascinating to see is the variety of ways in which curators are approaching the topic. At MOCA, a single-artist exhibition is straightforward: the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, known for his explorations of light, space, and geometry, presents a sprawling installation with large-scale optical rooms that interact with the museum as well as with the changing environment of L.A. itself, via strategically positioned skylights. Whether it’s peering into kaleidoscopic devices that transport the viewer into a hallucinogenic world of shapes and color or immersing oneself in his enveloping pieces, Eliasson invites visitors to think about notions of sensory perception and participation.

The Getty, meanwhile, acted as a sort of master of ceremonies for PST’s inaugural weekend, given that it provided grants to over 45 organizations to mount their exhibitions. The museum’s vast courtyard was the setting for an outdoor party with pretty much every art-world fixture in L.A.; the bash also served as the opening of the museum’s own eight PST shows. One focuses on photography and holograms (did you know that artists as diverse as Ed Ruscha and Louise Bourgeois created holographic artworks)? But perhaps the most impressive is “Lumen: The Art and Science of Light,” which studies the ways in which Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars, theologians, and artists treated light during the Middle Ages. It goes a long way in debunking the perception of that era as one dominated by impenetrable darkness.

Over at the Hammer, “Breathe: Toward Climate and Social Justice,” conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic, is an eye-opening survey of multidisciplinary works tackling one of the most pressing issues of our time. The offerings are wildly diverse: Yoshitomo Nara contributed a portrait of climate activist Greta Thunberg in his signature wide-eyed pop style, while the self-described “Gangsta Gardener” Ron Finley, whose practice revolves around teaching communities to transform food deserts into food sanctuaries, brought one of his urban gardens to the terrace of the museum. But perhaps the buzziest—pun intended—piece of all was a sculpture by Garnett Puett that is being constantly transformed onsite by live bees.

The official bang of PST belonged to Cai Guo-Qiang, who created a program of public daytime fireworks at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Chinese artist is known for his use of gunpowder and for his outdoor “explosion events”—perhaps most famously, the awe-inspiring displays at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In L.A., with 5000 guests in attendance, Cai used organic pigments and dyes to put on the first daytime fireworks display in the United States using drones equipped with pyrotechnics and custom AI he’d developed. It was a you-had-to-be-there kind of thing, but if you’re feeling a bit of FOMO, don’t. The fireworks may have lasted only 20 minutes or so, but most of the exhibitions at PST will be on display at least until early 2025. There’s no excuse for missing out.