Veteran curator and arts leader Justine Ludwig will guide Southern California’s landmark cultural initiative into its next chapter
Getty announced on Thursday that Justine Ludwig, an arts leader with curatorial and institutional experience in Dallas, Cincinnati, and New York, has been appointed the inaugural creative director of PST ART, the sprawling cultural initiative that brings together dozens of Southern California institutions every five years.
“With PST ART now occurring every five years, we’re delighted to welcome Justine Ludwig to the team that will lead this initiative into the future,” said Katherine E. Fleming, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “Collaboration and large-scale vision are the hallmarks of PST ART, and the qualities that Justine has demonstrated throughout her impressive career.”
Credit: Ali Cherkis
Ludwig joins the Getty from Creative Time, the New York-based public arts organisation known for ambitious projects staged outside traditional museum settings. As executive director, she developed CTHQ, a programming space for artist-led initiatives; launched an R+D fellowship supporting cross-disciplinary practices; and oversaw works including Moving Chains, a 110-foot-long kinetic sculpture by Los Angeles artist Charles Gaines.
Her earlier posts include deputy director and chief curator of Dallas Contemporary, where she expanded the institution’s reach through major exhibitions and cross-departmental oversight, and nearly a decade in the curatorial department at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center.
“I have long admired the ambition and achievements of PST ART, which has transformed Los Angeles’s creative community and reaffirmed LA on the world stage,” Ludwig said in a statement. “PST ART offers a unique opportunity to think differently and deeply, empowering the entire community to show the best that art has to offer. It demonstrates how collaboration and collective vision allow for the realisation of transformative projects. It’s a great privilege to be able to work with and learn from the vibrant cultural community across Southern California.”
A tradition of scale and ambition
Launched in 2011, PST ART has become the nation’s largest recurring art event, uniting museums, universities, and community organisations around thematic exhibitions that reframe Southern California’s cultural history. Its most recent edition, Art & Science Collide (autumn 2024–spring 2025), involved more than 70 institutions, supported by $20 million in Getty grants.
Earlier editions included Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (2017–18), which redefined the place of Latin American and Latinx art in global discourse, and Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980 (2011–12), which recast the origins of Los Angeles’s postwar art scene.
“With each edition, PST ART has expanded in its goals and ambitions, so we are excited about the future under Justine’s leadership,” said Joan Weinstein, director of the Getty Foundation. “She is a champion of the arts, has extensive art historical knowledge and administrative experience, and is a true collaborator. I know she will bring these skills and more to PST ART.”
The PST ART team also includes Zachary Kaplan, who directed programming for the recent edition and previously led Rhizome, and Tina Lee, a project manager with past experience at the Seattle Art Museum.
Charles Gaines, whose monumental Moving Chains Ludwig shepherded during her tenure at Creative Time, welcomed the appointment. “I am thrilled to hear that Getty has appointed Justine as the creative director of PST ART,” he said. “I have collaborated with Justine over the last several years on my work, Moving Chains, a very large and complex outdoor sculpture first installed on Governors Island in New York and scheduled to travel to Cincinnati. I learned firsthand while working with Justine what all of LA will soon discover—that she is an extremely gifted individual who is also a total joy to work with.”
©2025 PST ART
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