Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science

An interdisciplinary guide to the 20th-century Southern Californiabased 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 sciences 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. Particles and Waves unites several generations of artists working in diverse materials and styles to visualize light, energy, motion and time. Boasting a gorgeous cover, the volume features a wide array of artists and topics, from Man Rays paintings of mathematical models to Lee Mullicans computer-inspired abstractions, and from to the West Coast Minimalists and Light and Space artists (including Mary Corse, Fred Eversley and James Turrell) rigorous studies of light to Bettina Brendel and Helen Lundebergs investigations of scale through their paintings of subatomic and astronomical subjects.