Participant exhibition descriptions

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As part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA there will be four exhibitions at the Getty:

J. Paul Getty Museum

Contradiction and Continuity: Photography from Argentina (1850–2010)

Contradiction and Continuity emphasizes crucial historical moments and aesthetic movements in Argentina in which photography had a critical role, producing, and at other times dismantling, national constructions, utopian visions, and avant-garde artistic trends.  The exhibition examines the complexities of Argentina over the past 150 years, stressing the heterogeneity of its realities, the creation of contradictory histories, and the power of constructed photographic images in the configuration of a national imaginary.  With significant works dating from the decade of Argentina’s first constitution to the bicentennial of its independence, the exhibition will include almost 300 photographs representing the work of more than sixty artists.

Caption: Untitled (#8), 1993. Graciela Sacco (Argentinian, born 1956). Heliograph print, 71.5 × 45.4 cm (28 1/8 × 17 7/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © Graciela Sacco.

J. Paul Getty Museum
Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas

This major international loan exhibition explores the idea of luxury in the pre-Columbian Americas, particularly as seen in the associations between materials and meanings, from about 1000 BC to the arrival of Europeans in the early 16^th century. The exhibition will trace the development of metallurgy in the Andes and its expansion northward into Mexico. In contrast with people in other parts of the world, ancient Americans first used metals not for weaponry, tools, or coinage but for objects of ritual and ornament, resulting in works of extraordinary creativity. In addition to objects of gold and silver, the exhibition will feature works of art made from shell, jade, and textiles, materials that would have been considered even more valuable than noble metals. The exhibition will cast new light on the most precious works of art from the ancient Americas and provide new ways of thinking about materials, luxury and the visual arts in a global perspective. The exhibition is co-organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which will present the exhibition following the Getty’s presentation.

Caption: Nose Ornament with Spiders, Salinar culture, 1st century BCE-2nd century CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.1172) Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Getty Research Institute
Urban Transfer(s): Building the Latin American Metropolis from Independence to the Threshold of Modernism

Drawing on the Getty Research Institute’s special collections, this exhibition proposes a visual survey of the unprecedented growth of Latin American capital cities following the seasons of independence, observing how socio-political upheavals activated major changes in the city scale and the architectural landscape. Urban Transfer(s) examines how imported models were reinterpreted into diverse forms of re-appropriation of the national colonial and pre-Hispanic past, ushering these cities into a process of modernization. During a decolonization progression of longue durée, centuries–old colonial cities were transformed into monumental modern metropolises, which by the end of the 1920s provide fertile ground for the emerging of today’s Latin American megalopolis.

Caption: Courret Brothers (Eugenio Courret, France, 1841-190?) (Aquiles Courret, France, 1830-?) Place d’Armes, Lima, from the album Views of Chile and Peru, ca. 1868. Getty Research Institute, 96.R.1.

J. Paul Getty Museum
Límites Concretos: Postwar Abstraction in Argentina and Brazil

In the years after World War II, artists in Argentina and Brazil experimented with geometric abstraction and engaged in lively debates about the role of the art work in society. Some of these artists experimented with novel synthetic materials, creating objects that offered an alternative to established traditions in painting. They proposed these objects become part of everyday, concrete reality and explored the material and theoretical limits of that proposition. Combining art-historical and scientific analysis, experts from the Getty Conservation Institute and Getty Research Institute have collaborated with the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a world-renowned collection of Latin American art, to research the formal strategies and material decisions of artists working in the concrete and Neo-concrete vein, resulting in the first comprehensive technical study of these works. Visitors will see a selection of works by artists including Raúl Lozza, Tomás Maldonado, Rhod Rothfuss, Willys de Castro, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, and Judith Lauand alongside information about the now-invisible processes that determine the appearance of the works: supports, hanging devices, methods of paint application, and techniques of painting straight edges. A selection of historical documents will shed further light on the social, political, and cultural underpinnings of these artistic propositions.

Caption: Tomás Maldonado, Tres zonas y dos temas circulares, 1953. Oil on Canvas, 100 x 100 cm. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
Additional exhibitions and programs to be announced at a later date

Image Selections
Images included here represent a selection of image available from participating exhibitions.
Please note: The use of the press images should be only for articles, notices and reviews about Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, and related exhibitions and programs. Any other editorial or commercial use must be negotiated directly with the individual institution.
For high-resolution images, please contact:

Whitney Hegeman Rachel Bauch

[e-mail] / [phone] [e-mail] / [phone]

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