Getty Foundation Reveals Line-Up for Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Performance Art Festival

Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the Getty Foundation–funded initiative that launched in full in September, officially runs through the end of January, and will conclude with a performance art festival called “Pacific Standard Time Festival: Live Art LA/LA.” Featuring more than 200 artists staging some 75 works, the festival will run January 11 through 21.

The festival was first announced in October 2016, when REDCAT Gallery, the multidisciplinary arts center in downtown Los Angeles, received a $600,000 grant to organize it, and its program will include a mix of Latin American and Latinx artists performing in locations as diverse as the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM), the Broad, and the area outside the Westlake/MacArthur Park metro station.

Among the highlights of the PST Festival are artist Carmen Argote learning to ride motorcycles in the parking lot of Griffith Park; the USC Roski School of Arts and Design’s two-day art biennial, titled “Live Artists Live: Simultaneity”; and restaged pieces from the 1970s by Sylvia Palacios Whitman, whose work is included in the Hammer Museum’s “Radical Women” exhibition.

“It’s very much about living artists who are engaged in activism and current issues, and the performance aspect provides an opportunity for real-time, shared communal experiences,” Mark Murphy, the executive director of REDCAT, told ARTnews. The majority of the performances are free and open to the public, he added, and they will be staged in various neighborhoods of L.A. to eliminate as many barriers—both physical and social—as possible.

The Mexican performance collective Teatro Línea de Sombra will perform on Lower Grand Street, which has been used in many Hollywood car chases and is directly beneath the Broad and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Their work, titled Durango 66, will look at the long history of student activism and resistance in Mexico, from the late 1960s to now.

Nao Bustamante, the vice dean of art at USC Roski, will perform Teach Me Spanish/Enséñame al Español, which will invite passersby to the Westlake/MacArthur Park metro station to engage with the artist in an attempt to teach her Spanish. The work will reflect on the realities of Latinx assimilation within the United States, where, in some families, Spanish-speaking abilities are lost within a few generations.

Edgar Fabián Frías will organize a series titled “Cuerpos Unidos: Performances in Dialogue with Laura Aguilar” at VPAM, the host of a PST-funded retrospective of the seminal Chicana photographer Laura Aguilar. Frías and four other artists will present new works that respond to Aguilar’s work, which often deals with standards of beauty, Chicanx and queer identity, and exclusionary art-world practices.

Rafa Esparza, who was featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial and is involved in several PST performance works, will present a newly commissioned piece in three parts at the Geffen. Esparza’s work, titled cumbre: look as far as you can see in every direction-north and south, east and west and performed partly with Sebastian Hernandez, will meditate “on bridges and bodies of waters as sites of connection and healing, as well as spaces of division and risk,” according to a press release.

Raul Baltazar will present his piece My Sereno: Two Ritual Performances Honoring Our Past, Present, and Future Generations over two Sundays in Ascot Hills Park in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles, where the artist grew up. The performance will begin as a procession up and down the hill, with participants wearing costumes fashioned by Baltazar to mimic either the look of lava (red) or a waterfall (blue), and will end with a picnic. The purpose of the performance is to engage with various generations of the Chicanx community, with the first Sunday focusing on listening to stories of community elders and the second on the possibilities for the future generation.

Baltazar sees the hills as a temple for the city’s Eastside Chicanx community, and said he wants the performance to serve as a moment of healing in the current political climate. “The piece is creating a space for people to congregate in a safe space, especially for us, as people of color, who are facing this really intense, violent time,” he said. “I want to create a space for us to have leisure, to recuperate, and strengthen ourselves spiritually to create a connection with our network . . . and for this to create an impetus for future networking, workshopping, and community.”

The full line-up follows below.

OPAVIVARÁ!
Various festival sites
January 11–21

Astrid Hadad | I Am Made in Mexico
The Mayan Theater
January 11

Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol | Tijuana
Skirball Cultural Center gallery
January 11 & 12

Ligia Lewis | minor matter
REDCAT theater
January 12–14

Sylvia Palacios Whitman
REDCAT gallery, organized in partnership with the Hammer Museum
January 11 & 13

Colectivo AM | La Pista de Baile
LACE gallery and adjacent site
Banco Universal de Pasos: January 11–19
La Pista de Baile: January 20

Edgar Fabián Frías | Cuerpos Unidos: Performances in Dialogue with Laura Aguilar
Participating artists: Edgar Fabián Frías, Irina Contreros, Cesia Dominguez, Cindy Vallejo, and Freddy Villalobos
Vincent Price Art Museum
January 13

Live Artists Live: Simultaneity
Participating artists: Nao Bustamante, Carlos Martiel, Mickey Negrón, Rafa Esparza, Xandra Ibarra, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, and Dorian Wood
USC Graduate Fine Arts Building (IFT)
January 12 & 13

Carmina Escobar | FIESTA PERPETUA!
Echo Park Lake
January 13

Raul Baltazar | My Sereno: Two Ritual Performances Honoring Our Past, Present, and Future Generations
Ascot Hills Park
January 14 & 21

Lorena Wolffer | If She Is Mexico, Who Beat Her Up?
The Armory Center for the Arts
January 14

Encounter #43 and #44
Organized by artist Mariel Carranza
Human Resources gallery and secret outdoor location
January 14 & 20

Alexia Miranda | Memoria Sonora
El Pueblo de Los Angeles Plaza
January 14 & 16

Teatro Línea de Sombra | Durango 66
Lower Grand Street
January 16–18

Nao Bustamante | Teach Me Spanish/Enséñame al Español
Outside the Westlake/MacArthur Park metro station
January 17

Artemisa Clark | La clase de dibujo libre/Free Drawing Class
The Armory Center for the Arts
January 17

Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani | Discurso de Promoción
REDCAT theater
January 18–20

Rubén Martinez and Raquel Gutiérrez | Variedades
Curated by Marcus Kuiland-Nazario; performances by Alice Bag, Nao Bustamante, Rafa Esparza, Selene Luna, Marisela Norte, Dorian Wood, and others
The Mayan Theater
January 18

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa | El Corazón del espantapájaros (Heart of the Scarecrow)
LACMA’s Rodin Sculpture Garden
January 19

Oscar Santillán | Correspondances (After Charles Baudelaire)
LACMA’s Los Angeles Times Central Court
January 19

Mercedes Azpilicueta | La Facultad
REDCAT gallery
January 19

Carmen Argote | If only it were that easy …
Griffith Park, organized by 18th Street Arts Center
January 20

Naomi Rincon Gallardo | The Formaldehyde Trip
The Broad
January 20

Carlos Martiel, Andil Gosine, and Jimmy Robert | Representational Acts
Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)
January 20

Rafa Esparza | cumbre: look as far as you can see in every direction—north and south, east and west
Participating artist: Sebastian Hernandez
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
January 21