This season, LA is bursting at the seams with extraordinary new experiences for art lovers. The big news is Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART (previously Pacific Standard Time), returns for the first time since 2018. Many participating institutions are in the Downtown Los Angeles area, with everything from galleries to theatrical performances, and one-offs taking place between this fall and early 2025. Another event you won’t want to miss is LUMINEX, an outdoor multimedia extravaganza taking place in South Park, near Circa. And mark your calendars for the first Thursday of every month, when DTLA Art Night opens its doors to over 25 galleries. 

PST ART: Art & Science Collide – Various locations

Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART (previously Pacific Standard Time), returns in September 2024 with 800+ artists, 70+ exhibitions, and 1 mind-blowing theme: Art & Science Collide. One of the most expansive art events in the world, PST ART is a Getty initiative in partnership with museums and institutions across the region. This “collision” will explore the intersections of Art and Science, both past and present, with diverse organizations activating exhibitions on topics like ancient cosmologies, Indigenous sci-fi, environmental justice, and artificial intelligence. 

LUMINEX 3.0 1105 S Olive St. Los Angeles 90015

Save the date for October 5 when LUMINEX returns for a third year, bringing art and community together in an engaging outdoor exhibition using buildings as the canvas. For one night only, free and open to all, eight multimedia artists will transform a five-block radius in the South Park District of downtown Los Angeles. Featured artists this year include JOJO ABOT, Refik Anadol, Alice Bucknell, Nao Bustamante, Petra Cortright, Marc Horowitz, Carole Kim, and Sarah Rara, as well as special installations with Los Angeles Video Artists (LAVA). Don’t forget to book your pedicab!

Abstracted Light Experimental Photography Getty Center 1200 Getty Center Dr. Los Angeles, CA 90049  

Abstract imagery incorporating experimental lighting effects was of great interest to avant-garde photographers from the 1920s to the 1950s. This exhibition features photographs by international artists devoted to the practice, including László Moholy-Nagy, Francis Bruguière, Man Ray, Tōyō Miyatake, Asahachi Kono, and Jaromír Funke. The selection of works demonstrates the dynamic interplay between still photography, experimental film, and the dazzling time-based artworks by Thomas Wilfred called “Lumia instruments.” 

DTLA ArtNight Emerging Artist Gallery 125 W 4th St. #102, Los Angeles, CA 90013

DTLA ArtNight is a cultural gathering and art walk organized monthly on first Thursdays where over 25 galleries debut new exhibitions from their fine arts collections. These collections encompass a wide array of mediums from artists across LA, the U.S. and the world. DTLA ArtNight is also an opportunity for emerging artists to display their art in participating galleries.

Views of Planet City SCI-Arc 960 East 3rd St. Los Angeles, CA 90013

Is it possible to design a socially and environmentally sustainable city for seven billion people? Views of Planet City imagines what the world might look like if humanity were to reverse the urban sprawl, and its entire human population were to be housed inside a single, hyperdense megalopolis. Drawing on the ideas of pioneering scientists and futurists and projecting on the basis of already gestating technologies, Views of Planet City challenges dystopian visions of the cities of tomorrow and offers an alternative vision in which urbanization at a planetary scale is not incompatible with the safeguarding of Earth’s biodiversity.

ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN LACMA 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

As his first comprehensive, cross-media retrospective in over 20 years, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN traces Ruscha’s methods and familiar subjects throughout his career and underscores the many remarkable contributions he has made well beyond the boundaries of the art world. The exhibition includes his early works produced while traveling through Europe, his installations—such as the Chocolate Room and the Course of Empire presented at the Venice Biennale in 1970 and 2005, respectively—and his ceaseless photographic documentation of the streets of Los Angeles beginning in 1965.

Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads LACMA 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

While you’re at LACMA, don’t miss The Zodiac Project, Ai Weiwei’s first major public sculpture. For this monumental new work, Ai has recreated the famous twelve bronze animal heads that once adorned the Zodiac Fountain in Yuan Ming Yuan, the Old Summer Palace, in Beijing. Cast around 1750, the original heads were looted by Anglo-French troops who took part in the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan in 1860 during the Second Opium War. The heads remain a potent trigger for Chinese nationalist sentiments. Ai’s new work suggests a dialogue about the fate of art objects that exist within dynamic and sometimes volatile cultural and political settings. With his subversive wit, the artist adapts objects from the Chinese material canon going back to antiquity, twisting traditional meanings toward new purposes.

Olafur Eliasson: OPEN The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA 152 N Central Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90012

Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967, Copenhagen; lives and works in Berlin) presents a new site-specific installation made for The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. In line with Eliasson’s career-long exploration of light and color, geometry, and environmental awareness, the installation playfully engages with material and immaterial qualities of the museum’s architecture. A series of large-scale optical devices designed specifically for MOCA Geffen will respond to the building itself, as well as to the ever-changing atmosphere of Los Angeles. Visitors will encounter a dazzling range of sensory experiences that harness the laws of geometric optics to address feelings and concepts of embodiment, perception, and participation.

Breath(e) Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90024

Part of Getty’s region-wide initiative PST ART: Art and Science Collide, Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice considers the connections between climate change, environmental justice, and social justice through the lens of contemporary art. The indoor/outdoor exhibition brings together approximately 100 works focused on climate change by a group of intergenerational contemporary artists, scientists, and activists, addressing anthropogenic disasters such as deforestation, ocean acidification, coral reef bleaching, water pollution, extraction, and atmospheric politics.

Storm Cloud & Growing and Knowing The Huntington 1151 Oxford Rd. San Marino, CA 91108

Art and science collide in The Huntington’s new exhibitions, on view Sept. 14, 2024–Jan. 6, 2025. “Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis” and “Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China” trace the dovetailing histories of the relationship between humans and the environment and emphasize the significant role that close observation has played in art, science, and ethics. When viewed together, provocative questions emerge about our interconnectedness with the natural world. The exhibitions are part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, a regional event presented by Getty featuring more than 70 exhibitions and programs that explore the intersections of art and science, both past and present. 

Photo Credits:

Photo #1: NOW ART LA (LUMINEX LA)

Photo #2: Getty Center

Photo #3: LUMINEX LA

Photo #4: Getty Center

Photo #5: DTLA ArtNight

Photo #6: SCI-Arc

Photo #7: LACMA

Photo #8: LACMA

Photo #9: Geffen Contemporary

Photo #10: Hammer Museum

Photo #11: The Huntington