“Art and science collide” is the focus of this year’s PST ART, a Getty-sponsored event that includes more than 800 artists and at least 70 institutions around Southern California. It runs now through February 16, 2025.
Culture writer Carolina Miranda attended the first event at the LA Coliseum on Sunday. There were daytime fireworks, and explosions of light and colorful pigments such as green, red, and blue, she describes. That ceremony was imagined in part by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who designed the visual and special effects for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
“So often his work is described as spectacle, and I was expecting a little bit of that, and there is an element of the spectacular to it, but you also feel this inherent violence,” she points out.
That sentiment stems from Guo-Qiang’s use of gunpowder.
“Gunpowder has in it these incredible technological properties. You can build tunnels by blasting through a mountain with it. It has incredible spectacle possibilities as a firework. But … we use gunpowder in guns, and guns kill. … There was a moment at the beginning where the rhythm of the firecrackers going off was almost like the sound of a machine gun, and there was something really terrifying about that.”
Miranda compares the sheer number of diverse exhibits to the Olympics. Themes include cyberpunk (Academy Museum of Motion Pictures), how Mesoamericans approached color (LACMA), and the use of light in medieval Europe (Getty Center).
“For example, the Getty’s Lumen show … explores the nature of light. Yes, you're looking at things like scientific instruments, medieval manuscripts that explore the nature of light and document the nature of light and how it works. But also in exploring lights of spiritual meaning during that era, there are just some absolutely remarkable paintings and works of art integrated throughout the exhibition that bring together the two things.”
She continues, “It's a very unwieldy series of themes, in a way, but it's really incredible to see how curators have put them together. And I think yes, some of the shows that I've seen have been a little bit more didactic in terms of the science and others more conceptual.”
Smaller organizations are also hosting exhibits. That includes Fulcrum Arts, which has teamed up with Chapman University, for a show called “Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific.” It explores the idea of tectonic plates, earthquakes, and the nature of vibration.
“There's a remarkable piece there by a Colombian artist [Alba Triana] who has managed to create a visual interpretation of sound using a speaker and a string that is quite hypnotic — you're literally looking at sound. There is no sound, but you're looking at sound waves.”