'Pacific Standard Time': Public Art, Exhibits and Performances to See in West Hollywood

Those cruising the Sunset Strip next week might be surprised to find a 58-foot steel tetrahedron tower—otherwise known as —in the empty lot next to Hustler. It is just one of four West Hollywood demonstrations launching this month in connection with the Getty's Pacific Standard Time public art exposition across Southern California.

Through more than 60 exhibitions and programs, Pacific Standard Time strives to demonstrate how the Southland has affected national and international artistic movements since the middle of the 20th century. Meanwhile, West Hollywood is highlighting its own revolutionary thinkers and art world icons in several provocative events and exhibits through April.

"The reason West Hollywood is where it is, this was an area that the LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department] could not touch. What sprang out of that was a lot of chaos, bohemia," Mayor John Duran told a group of curators and artists at a media reception on Wednesday. "We were always pushing the edge on race, culture, counterculture. This little hodgepodge of a community has always felt different. ... We couldn't be prouder."

Mark di Suvero’s re-creation of his monumental Artists' Tower of Protest, built in 1966 as a Vietnam War protest, is considered the focal point of West Hollywood's Pacific Standard Time celebration, formally called PST...It All Started Here. "It's an opportunity to reflect on arts activism today," said LA><ART Associate Director and Senior Curator Cesar Garcia.

"We need the tower now as much as we did in '66," added Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Sam Durant, who participated in the restaging of the tower at the Whitney Museum in New York City to protest the Iraq War in 2008.

Other PST highlights include Perpetual Conceptual, an exploration of gallerist Eugenia Butler, open Jan. 25 through April 21 at . The exhibit presented by the Los Angeles Nomadic Division focuses on the seminal art movement on La Cienega Boulevard during the late 1960s.

The , at 626 N. Robertson Blvd., has culled LGBTQ artwork, objects and documents for their comprehensive exhibition, Cruising the Archive: Queer Art and Culture in Los Angeles, 1945-1980: Wink Wink, open now through April 1.

The new will display post-World War II political poster art from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. The show, Decade of Dissent: Democracy in Action 1965-1975—not an official PST listing—is running Feb. 4 through April 28.

is having a poetry slam in homage to Charles Bukowski on Feb. 16. The Troubadour and the Whisky a Go-Go—hangouts of artists and musicians that helped make Weho a world-renowned cultural desination—are also expected to participate in the PST celebration.

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