Los Angeles is Latin America: Art, driving and the city

Abstract

Abstract Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, Latin American & Latino Art in Los Angeles thematically linked more than 70 exhibitions and programmes exploring Latin American cultural roots alongside contemporary Latin American and Latinx influences on art in the greater Los Angeles area. The third iteration of an expansive Getty Foundation initiative, LA/LA stretched across Southern California from September 2017 through January 2018. This review essay connects the experience of viewing LA/LA exhibitions with the inevitably intertwined experience of driving in the city. Driving across Los Angeles, the shifting urban landscape reinforced the narratives being dissected in exhibition spaces, which in turn blurred the lines of where LA/LA ended and daily life in Los Angeles began. The review addresses exhibitions at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Union Station. The LA/LA exhibitions provoked questions of borderlands and migrants, cultural histories and traditions, and home and family that extend beyond the walls of the exhibition spaces to permeate urban life.