Getty Foundation Director Joan Weinstein on the Los Angeles art scene

Above: Nikesha Breeze, Stages of Tectonic Blackness: Blackdom2021

Joan Weinstein is at the center of one of the art world’s biggest circles. As director of the Getty Foundation, where she has worked for 30 years, she helped create Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945–1980acclaimed 2011 mega-exhibition that brought together museums from across Southern California and set a new standard for collaborative endeavors. PST In 2018, the second edition with a Latin theme took place, and this month, its third and largest edition, PST Art: Art and Science Collide, begins.

Weinstein has skillfully leveraged the resources at her disposal from the Getty Trust, which has an endowment of about $8 billion, which also funds the J. Paul Getty Museum and related conservation and research institutes. Going further, PST Art will take place every five years, meaning Weinstein will have more and more work to do. Robb’s Report spoke with her about the ambitious undertaking, the history behind it, and why creating an Eastern Time equivalent might not be an option.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

This is getting big, right?
It’s still growing. We’re taking over the region. I think we funded about 35 exhibitions in the first year. This year, it’s 60. So far, this year, we’ve made about $23 million in grants.

Remind us how it all started.
Andrew Perchuk, deputy director of the Getty Research Institute, and I were the two initiators of the first one. The Institute was in the process of conducting oral histories from 1945 to 1980. We realized that the families of gallerists and artists in Los Angeles were throwing away documents from that period, thinking they had no real value.

We discovered that they were telling a completely different story of the history of modern art in this country. And then we thought, oh, maybe we’ll do one or two exhibitions on that. It grew quickly.

There are so many institutions involved – is that a challenge?
I don’t think there’s another place that could collaborate the way the institutions in Los Angeles do. In the beginning PST time The director of one of the largest museums in New York said, “How could Los Angeles do this before us?” Someone else said, “Well, New York is just too competitive.” That was the moment we thought we had done something special.

How do museums cooperate?
First of all Pacific Standard Time, there was a curator at a large institution who was talking to someone at a smaller place—they both wanted to borrow the same piece of art. The curator at the large institution said, “I’ve already secured this loan from the collector. But it’s much more important to your show. I could get another piece. I’ll help you borrow it.”

Do you think smaller museums will receive support in different ways?
Yes. During the first PST time we conducted intercept surveys in all museums. The vast majority of people who considered themselves museum goers had never been to the institution they were in at the time, about two thirds.

Why is the theme of this issue art and science?
Since the early 20th century, Southern California has been so closely linked to science and technology. It was where scientists came to look at the sky, to the Mount Wilson Observatory, and where Edwin Hubble showed that the universe is constantly expanding.

Does this have any particular significance now, as science comes under attack in some quarters?
When we came up with this topic five years ago, we had no idea that it would become so relevant in 2024. I think one of the great things about art exhibitions is that they open up new possibilities for discussing topics that are not as polarized.

For example, climate change is so abstract to people and it’s slowly creeping up on us. But artwork can help us engage with these issues in a much more visceral, emotional way.

Could it be a coincidence that the Los Angeles art scene has exploded since the first PST?
The greatest satisfaction was seeing the small part we played in making LA a destination in the art world. We hope we were part of that impetus.

Must-see PSTs

If you don’t have time to watch dozens of Weinstein shows, here are three of his top picks.

Particles and Waves: Abstraction and Science in Southern California, 1945–1990

Palm Springs Art Museum
From September 14 to February 23

“It showed some of the art we saw at the beginning of Pacific Time,” Weinstein explains, “but it showed it in a different context—how advanced scientific research inspired abstract artists,” including Mary Corse and Fred Eversley (Untitled (Black), 1978, above).

Salt Water Los Angeles

CSU Dominguez Hills University Art Gallery
From August 12 to December 14

Catherine Opie and Alfredo Jaar (Untitled (Water) E, 1990, above) are artists examining the “disrupted natural water systems” on the campus, which Weinstein describes as “located where the intertidal zone and the wetlands once met, but no longer do so because of climate change.”

For Dear Life: Art, Medicine and Disability

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art
From September 19 to February 2

In the show, which features works by Lynn Hershman Leeson (X-Ray Woman in Bathing Cap, 1966, above), Yvonne Rainer, and Ida Applebroog, Weinstein says that “modern medicine is looking at the human body and wondering whether we should change the way we look at it.”