Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science: 1945–1990

by Michael Duncan (Editor), Sharrissa Iqbal (Editor), W Patrick McCray (Contributor), Camille Fremontier-Murphy (Contributor), Jason Weems (Contributor), Roger Malina (Contributor), Matthew Simms (Contributor)

An interdisciplinary guide to the 20th-century Southern California–based artists who investigated phenomena from the realms of optical science, astronomy, aerospace engineering and math.

The synergy between art and science is an age-old tale; artists throughout time, from Leonardo da Vinci to Beeple, have incorporated newly discovered scientific theories and techniques into their practices. The PST ART project Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science explores a particularly fecund yet underexplored period in the history of art and science’s cross-fertilization. The development of postwar industry and research in Southern California inspired a host of artistic innovations; for decades, abstract artists from the region experimented with color, form and mediums, variously employing ideas or procedures gleaned from the latest developments in physics, astronomy and mathematics.