‘PST Art’ Lifts Off, as NASA Scientists Team With Artists

Surveying the convoluted amalgamation of equipment in his windowless lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory the other day, Kevin P. Hand, a planetary scientist and astrobiologist, said he sees “a massive experiment to simulate Jupiter’s moon Europa.” But visual artists looking at the same tangle, he noted, might “see this as some sort of bizarre sculpture.”

Pointing out a direct-to-Earth antenna, Hand added, “an artist comes in and says, what is this pointillism creation that you’ve got going on here?”

Hand is among the scientists working with artists to create “Blended Worlds: Experiments in Interplanetary Imagination,” one of about 70 installations taking part in “PST Art,” the behemoth of an exhibition that officially opens Sept. 15 and runs through Feb. 23 at museums and other nonprofits across Southern California.

Originally called “Pacific Standard Time” and funded by the Getty, “PST Art,” on its third iteration, will explore connections between art and science. Artists are digging into topics ranging from climate change and ecofeminism to environmental justice and medieval astrology.

With earlier editions focusing on Los Angeles (2011) and then Latin American art (2017), “PST Art” has become an embodiment of the region’s vibrant art scene, a uniting force among museums and an opportunity for smaller institutions to gain more visibility among their higher-profile counterparts. In 2023, the Getty announced that “PST Art” would occur every five years, rather than periodically, starting in 2030.

“It’s a huge glue for bringing together all sorts of organizations across Southern California at the same time and it has this reputation and reach nationally and globally,” said Katherine E. Fleming, the Getty’s president and chief executive. “We’re not commissioning. We’re responding to ideas institutions have with support. Everyone is doing things their way but with this shared common theme.”