LA-X through May 22nd

Ed Ruscha's 1965-68 painting was prescient. The Los Angeles County Museum is on Fire. Rather, Los Angeles County itself is and has been a sizzling breeding ground of artistic development since World War II. But until recently art historians have generally downplayed the region, emphasizing New York instead as the center of post-war art in America. Even as recently as January 2012, an article in Art + Auction Magazine posited that Richard Diebenkorn "remains undervalued today" because his prices were compromised by his decision to remain on the West Coast*.

    Enter Pacific Standard Time, the Getty Foundation and Research Institute's initiative comprising a series of exhibitions, public programs, grants and publications spanning more than 60 cultural institutions in Southern California. The primary mission of PST is to document what its organizers consider to be a "collective rethinking of the region's art history". Beginning last fall and continuing through the Spring of 2012, PST surveys the main ideas, movements and moments in California art between 1945 and 1980, years that bracketed a period of unprecedented development.

    Skip ahead three hours. Here on the other coast The Parrish Art Museum presents EST-3, Art from Los Angeles in the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection. Billed as "a playful rejoinder" to PST, EST-3, which runs from March 4 - June 17th, focuses on art made in California in the same period. For viewers who won't be making the trip to LA this year, The Parrish exhibition includes works by many of the important PST artists and is a good synopsis of the Getty project.

    LA-X  will run concurrently with EST-3 and takes off where PST ends. A group show of mostly under-recognized artists living and working in Los Angeles, LA-X focuses on artists born between 1960 and 1980, the same years that much of the PST work was being made. This is also the unofficial demographic of Generation X, thus the hyphenated X in the show's title. Many of the artists in the exhibition have migrated to LA from elsewhere, viewing Los Angeles as a cultural destination, so the reference to the city's airport seems apt.

    The LA art scene has been described as a multi-generational social ecosystem, and the participant list of artists in this exhibition evolved organically, through a network of recommendations by friends and colleagues. Rather than focusing on a particular movement or style, the show reflects the diversity and eclectic energy emanating from the Golden State at this time. Now that the art world has become more globalized, in part because of the proliferation of art fairs and the internet, is it even possible for a regional aesthetic or movement to exist? How has living in LA influenced these artists (or not)? And what impact, if any, have the PST artists had on them? The exhibition will examine these issues generally as well as the specific concerns of the artists involved.

    For more information and images contact Sara Nightingale. sara@saranightingale.com

    LA-X will run through May 20th.

    Sophia Allison
    Leon Benn
    Michael Blasi
    Colin Burns
    Karen Chu
    Stephanie Farr
    J. Bennet Fitts
    Alexa Gerrity
    Karl Hahn
    Joshua Levine
    Devon Oder
    Josh Peters
    Colin Roberts
    Cole Sternberg
    Nicola Vruwink
    Annie Wharton

* Judd Tully, Artist Dossier, Richard Diebenkorn, Art + Auction, January 2012
Alexa Gerrity, Let's Call it Valencia,  still from video

Sara Nightingale Gallery
visit/ ship: 688 Montauk Highway
Water Mill, NY 11976
mail: PO Box 2646
Sag harbor, NY 11963
631-793-2256
www.saranightingale.com