The Getty in Los Angeles is partnering with London-based art fair and media organisation Frieze to present a series of special commissions and events over the coming year in the leadup to the 2024 edition of Pacific Standard Time (now PST ART), the Getty-led exhibition programme at museums and non-profit art spaces across Southern California.
The two first projects announced under the partnership’s auspices will coincide with upcoming Frieze fairs: a new video and interactive performance by the Korean collective ikkibawiKrrr, about the famed haenyeo (female divers) of Jeju Island, will be shown at Frieze Seoul (6-9 September); and Los Angeles-based artist Candice Lin will use traditional methods of indigo dying to create kites adorned with mythological and animal imagery that will be displayed and flown at Frieze London (11–15 October).
A work by ikkibawiKrrr related to the collective's project for Frieze Seoul will be featured in one of the central exhibitions of next year’s PST ART, Breath(e): Towards Climate and Social Justice, at the Hammer Museum. Details of the sprawling initiative’s third edition, titled PST ART: Art & Science Collide, were revealed this past spring and include works by more than 800 artists featured in upwards of 50 exhibitions, which the Getty has supported through grants totalling $17m.
The PST ART programme will launch more than a year after the Frieze partnership kicks off, on 14 September 2024, continuing through 16 February 2025. After previous editions of Pacific Standard Time focused on the post-war art scene in Los Angeles and Latino and Latin American art, PST ART: Art & Science Collide is devoted, as its title signals, to the many places where art and science overlap, from climate change research and artificial intelligence to biological engineering and environmental justice.
Frieze’s announcement of its partnership with Getty promises projects in Seoul, London and Los Angeles, all cities where it operates fairs. The announcement makes no mention of New York, where Frieze has operated a fair every May for more than a decade. Frieze recently acquired a rival New York fair, The Armory Show, which takes place every September, as well as Expo Chicago, the leading art fair in that city, which takes place every April.