Pacific standard time : Los Angeles art, 1945-1980 / edited by Rebecca Peabody ... [et al.]

This volume is published on the occasion of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, an initiative of the Getty with arts institutions across Southern California, and accompanies the Getty Research Institute's exhibition Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970, held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, from 1 October 2011 through 5 February 2012 and at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, from 15 March through 10 June 2012."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Shifting the standard: reappraising art in Los Angeles / Rebecca Peabody et al. -- Floating structures: building the modern in postwar Los Angeles / Andrew Perchuk and Catherine Taft -- Papa's got a brand new bag: crafting an art scene / Lucy Bradnock and Rani Singh -- For people who know the difference: defining the pop art sixties / Ken D. Allan, Lucy Bradnock, and Lisa Turvey -- Duration piece: rethinking sculpture in Los Angeles / Donna Conwell and Glenn Phillips -- Here, here or there: on the whereabouts of art in the seventies / Jane McFadden.

This comprehensive, richly illustrated book explores postwar American art from a new Southern California. The analysis of the L.A. art scene from the end of World War II until the beginning of the 1980s—the first in-depth scholarly survey of the region’s art—demonstrates the major role Southern California artists played in the twentieth century’s most influential art movements. Grounded in more than a decade of research, the five chapters augmented by lively sidebars take readers on a tour of an art world in constant formation. The story unfolds through the people, relationships, and ideas that defined the region’s artistic production. Photographs and rare materials from the Getty Research Institute and other archives bring the era to life, opening a window onto the emergence of hardedge abstraction, ceramic sculpture, assemblage, pop art, conceptualism, performance art, and avant-garde practices that blurred boundaries and defied labels. The result is an indispensable resource that will fundamentally change the view of modern art in America.

English