Pacific Standard Time: What to Expect From Los Angeles' Big Art Moment

"The Hockney Swimmer," 1978, C-Type Print, Courtesy fo Michael Childers, © Michael Childers

Tony Cunha, © Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts/Happy Valley Foundation

Francois Durand/Getty Images

Kem Weber, "Desk and Chair," 1938, © 2011 Museum Associates/LACMA

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

MORE MUST-VISIT EXHIBITS!

Hammer Museum
Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980

Featuring David Hammons' print America the Beautiful, it explores the legacy of L.A.'s African-American artists. Actor Armie Hammer, whose great-grandfather founded the museum, is an honorary trustee. (10899 Wilshire Blvd., Oct. 2 to Jan. 8)

A + D Museum
Eames Designs: The Guest-Host Relationship

Get a close look at functional-yet-sculptural furniture by the late design innovators Charles and Ray Eames. The architecture and design museum's supporters include HBO vp postproduction Cynthia Kanner. (6032 Wilshire Blvd., Oct. 1 to Jan. 16)

Fowler Museum at UCLA
Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement

Valdes and Cheech Marin are on the honorary committee for the exhibit's opening. It tracks the art movement from the opening of L.A.'s first Chicano art gallery in East Los Angeles in 1969 through the '70s. (North Campus, Oct. 16 to Feb. 26)

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Artistic Evolution

This comic-book-inspired Mel Ramos painting (right) was part of a 1963 Pop Art show here. The exhibit spotlights NHM's early embrace of modern art, before its collections went to the then-new LACMA during the '60s. (900 Exposition Blvd., Oct. 2 to Jan. 15)

The Grammy Museum
Trouble in Paradise

Photos, album art, concert posters and more go on display at downtown's 2-year-old museum, whose exhibit looks at L.A. music scenes including Laurel Canyon folk, Sunset Strip rock, surf rock and jazz from 1945 to 1975. (800 W. Olympic Blvd., Feb. 22 to April 2)

Art Platform -- Los Angeles

With such hosts as David Gersh, Rachel Griffiths and Darren Star, this inaugural art fair should lure plenty of VIPs downtown for the Sept. 30 preview. Launched by the founders of New York's Armory Show, it includes 90 exhibitors with a focus on contemporary L.A. artists. (L.A. Mart, 1933 S. Broadway, Oct. 1 to 3)

Commercial Gallery Shows

L.A.'s galleries are getting in on PST with their own shows of blue-chip SoCal artists. Among the best will be Robert Irwin's fluorescent light sculptures at Venice's L&M arts, works by Raymond Pettibon at West Hollywood's Regen Projects and Robert Therrien's surreal stacks of dinner plates at Gagosian Beverly Hills.