UCLA artists, research centers and public arts programs are making a huge contribution to the Getty’s massive initiative PST ART, with works stemming from creators’ multifaceted research practices and deep ties within multiple communities.

PST ART, formerly Pacific Standard Time, is the largest art event in the United States. This year’s iteration will engage audiences throughout Southern California with the theme “Art & Science Collide.” With the support of nearly $20 million in grants from the Getty, dozens of cultural, scientific and community organizations will present more than 60 exhibitions and a wide spectrum of programs, traversing such topics as climate change, Indigenous knowledge, artificial intelligence, the burgeoning field of eco-acoustic art and more.

UCLA is the single largest granted institution in this year’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide, with nearly $2 million in research and exhibition support from the Getty. The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture and the UCLA Film & Television Archive boast a prominent, expansive presence, with seven programs and exhibitions spanning July 20, 2024, through May 25, 2025. 

Tiffany Chung

Tiffany Chung’s “Stored in a Jar” will be featured in “Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice” at the Hammer Museum.

Included among the presenting institutions are UCLA Arts’ two world-renowned museums, the Hammer Museum at UCLA and the Fowler Museum at UCLA; two innovative research centers, UCLA Art | Sci Center and UCLA Arts Conditional Studio; and its groundbreaking performing arts program, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance.

• The Fowler will kick off PST ART with “Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal,” opening to the public on July 21. This multivocal exhibition centers ancestral knowledge and technical experimentation and also brings a special focus to immigration and labor justice. 
• Opening Sept. 14 at the Hammer Museum is “Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice,” an urgent and poetic collection of commissioned work that considers environmental art practices that address the climate crisis and anthropogenic disasters and their intersection with issues of equity and social justice.
• “Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption,” from the Art | Sci Center, begins Sept. 26 across multiple campus venues. Thirteen artists bring interactive installations, live performances, sound walks and more experiences that demonstrate that ambiguities of sound can help audiences understand the rapidly shifting state of the climate and its effects on the physical world. 
• The UCLA Film & Television Archive, renowned for its pioneering efforts to preserve and showcase moving image media, will present “Science Fiction Against the Margins,” a 12-night film series which reveals another side to the sci-fi genre beyond Hollywood spectacles. Presented in partnership with UCLA Cinema & Media Studies in the School of Theater, Film and Television, the series launches Oct. 4.
• Two programs will expand the UCLA Arts footprint into downtown Los Angeles for PST ART. Presented at Human Resources gallery in Chinatown is “Art and the Internet in L.A.” from UCLA Arts Conditional Studio. This exhibition, beginning Oct. 5, invites a roster of contemporary artists living and working in Los Angeles to respond to the 50-year history of artists creating work on and with the internet.
• On Dec. 7 at the United Theater, CAP UCLA in partnership with REDCAT present “Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits, and Machines,” featuring experimental performances created in response to the REDCAT exhibition All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.” The exhibition rethinks artificial intelligence through the lens of underrepresented communities, exploring how technology alters the understanding of the human and nonhuman connection, and investigating its potential as a liberative tool.
• On Jan. 12, 2025, the Fowler presents “Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art,” an exhibition that argues for a return to Native practices in which fire is regarded as a vital aspect of land stewardship, community well-being and tribal sovereignty.

Read the full news release on PST ART: “Art & Science Collide.”