Pacific Standard Time: Trouble In Paradise: Music And Los Angeles, 1945-1975

Exhibit Info

On View - Jun 03, 2012 - Jun 03, 2012

On Wednesday, February 22, 2012, The GRAMMY Museum, in conjunction with the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980, unveiled “Trouble In Paradise: Music and Los Angeles, 1945-1975.” Located on the Museum’s fourth floor, the exhibit explores thirty years of the pop music scene in Los Angeles, and its related culture, politics, and popular art. The GRAMMY Museum has partnered with University of Southern California professor Josh Kun, who is serving as co-curator.

“Trouble in Paradise: Music and Los Angeles, 1945-1975” is part of “Pacific Standard Time.’ This unprecedented collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together more than sixty cultural institutions from across Southern California for six months beginning in October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. “Pacific Standard Time” is made possible through the generous support of our sponsors.

The exhibit features iconic images, a cross-section of ephemera (album art, handbills, concert posters, etc.), music, and filmed interviews with key figures in the scene. Rather than an exhaustive overview, “Trouble In Paradise” focuses on the tensions between alluring myths of Southern California paradise and the realities of social struggle that characterized the years following WWII.

Genres of music highlighted in the exhibit include surf rock, jazz, R&B, Laurel Canyon folk rock, the Sunset Strip rock scene, and the East L.A. Chicano sound, all of which helped shape the most diverse and influential music scenes in all of America during this socially tumultuous period of L.A. History. Additional public and educational programming related to the exhibit will be announced soon.

“Trouble In Paradise: Music and Los Angeles, 1945-1975” through June 3, 2012.

“Trouble in Paradise” is funded by the Getty Foundation.