This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
The number of exhibits combining science and art in some capacity has grown steadily since I began blogging about them in 2011. With exhibits in galleries and museums across the country, there's something for everyone. Enjoy!
EXHIBITS: NORTHEAST REGION
WILDERNESS FOREVER: 50 Years of Protecting America's Wild Places
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September 3, 2014 - TBD
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.
This juried photography exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, a cornerstone of American environmental conservation. The exhibit explores the majesty, diversity, and value of the nation's wilderness areas. Approximately 50 award-winning large-format images by professional, amateur, and student photographers reveal America as you've never seen it -- wild, untouched, and free.
Also of note, The Smithsonian Libraries and Smithsonian Gardens present “The Lost Bird Project,” an exhibit by artist Todd McGrain, March 27 through March 15, 2015. This project recognizes the tragedy of modern extinction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction. It will feature large-scale bronze sculptures of the Carolina Parakeet, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, the Heath Hen and the Passenger Pigeon.
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November 17, 2014 - April 29, 2015
National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C.
Collapse is an installation created in response to the global crisis occurring in the world's fisheries and the current threat for the unraveling of the Gulf of Mexico's food chain following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This large-scale installation, a pyramid display of hundreds of preserved fish and other aquatic organisms in gallon jars, recalls the fragile interrelationships between Gulf species. Empty containers represent species in decline or those already lost the extinction. Brandon Ballengée created Collapse in collaboration with Todd Gardner, Jack Rudloe, Brian Schiering, and Peter Warny.
Also on view is Ghosts of the Gulf, a series of prints made from scans of chemically cleared and stained specimens collected in the Gulf of Mexico after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The species depicted and numerous others may be in decline. The prints are meant to be seen as apparitions. The chemical process of clearing and staining specimens involves multiple steps, revealing the complex architectural anatomy of these beautiful species. Although the images look like brightly colored X-rays, Ballengée actually scanned each chemically altered specimen millimeter by millimeter to make detailed recordings. He then assembled the layers in Photoshop to create the final artworks.
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THE SINGING AND THE SILENCE: Birds in Contemporary Art
October 31, 2014 – February 22, 2015
American Art Museum
3rd Floor, North
8th and F Streets, N.W.
Washington, DC
While artists have historically created images of birds for the purposes of scientific inquiry, taxonomy or spiritual symbolism, the artists featured in The Singing and the Silence instead share a common interest in birds as allegories for our own earthbound existence. The 46 artworks on display consider themes such as contemporary culture’s evolving relationship with the natural world, the steady rise in environmental consciousness, and the rituals of birding. The exhibit coincides with two significant environmental anniversaries—the extinction of the passenger pigeon in 1914 and the establishment of the Wilderness Act in 1964—events which highlight mankind’s journey from conquest of the land to conservation of it. Although human activity has affected many species, birds in particular embody these competing impulses. Inspired by the confluence of these events, the exhibition explores how artists working today use avian imagery to meaningfully connect with the natural world, among other themes.
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New Paintings by JIRI GEORG DOKOUPIL
January 8 - February 7, 2015
Paul Kasmin Gallery
515 W. 27th Street
New York, NY
Comprised of large-scale works on canvas from the artist’s Soap Bubble Paintings series, the exhibition demonstrates Dokoupil’s continuously varied experiments with non-traditional media and chemical processes. As a founding member of the Cologne-based Mülheimer Freiheit and Junge Wilde (“Wild Youth”), a group of young artists in the late 1970s, he rejected the reductive, austere, and unapproachable nature of Minimal and Conceptual Art during this time in favor of a more animated style and saturated palette.
The first Soap Bubble Paintings were developed in the early 1990s by creating alchemical compounds fusing pigment and soap in various proportions. Dokoupil stages dynamic areas of tension between chemistry and art as the traces, now consisting of soap-lye enriched with metallic pigments and diamond dust, accumulate in the form of two molecular layers and result in translucent bubbles. The resulting organic forms settle on the canvas with calculated spontaneity, displaying holographic tendencies and shifting perspectives. Seeking to reinvent traditional painting techniques, Dokoupil’s pictures are aesthetically bold and dynamic yet conceptually rigorous.
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SCIENCE INSPIRES ART: The Brain
October 11, 2014 – March 29, 2015
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th St
Corona, NY
View images of original art (digital images, paintings, collage, installation, sculpture, etc.), inspired or informed by various aspects of the brain and new discoveries in neuroscience. The 16th international art-sci juried exhibition is organized by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) and is free with NYSCI admission.
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PATIENCE, PAPER, PEN & BRUSH: Botanical Illustration by Dick Rauh
September 27, 2014 - January 27, 2015
The Brooklyn Botanical Garden
150 Eastern Parkway
990 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
Renowned botanical illustrator Dick Rauh, a fellow of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society, has drawn a number of trees in the living collection, including specimens from the Garden’s important bonsai collection, the focus of this exhibition. Informed by a deep understanding of botany and plant morphology, Rauh’s work brings to light the architectural beauty of plants. Displayed alongside the artist’s botanical drawings and paintings will be his chapbooks, which contain additional plant illustrations as well as poems.
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November 15, 2014 – January 19, 2015
The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Boulevard
Bronx, NY
The renowned LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden counts among its holdings many of the most beautiful and pioneering botanical and horticultural works ever created. More than eight centuries of knowledge, from the twelfth century to the present, are represented in the Library’s Collection. In this sumptuous exhibition in the Art Gallery visitors are introduced to some of the Library’s most fascinating works—exceedingly rare books, stunning botanical artworks, illustrated manuscripts, medieval herbals, exquisite garden prints and flower books, nursery catalogs, explorers’ notebooks, and more.
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NATURAL HISTORIES: 400 Years of Scientific Illustration from the Museum’s Library
October 19, 2013 - June 12, 2015
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY
Featuring scientific illustrations spanning five centuries, the new exhibition Natural Histories: 400 Years of Scientific Illustration from the Museum’s Library explores the integral role illustration has played in scientific discovery through 50 striking, large-format reproductions from seminal holdings in the Museum Library’s Rare Book collection. Artists include Albrecht Dürer, Joseph Wolf, Moses Harris, John Woodhouse Audubon, and Maria Sibylla Merian.
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SPRINGS, SPROCKETS, & PULLEYS: The Mechanical Sculptures of STEVE GERBERICH
TBD
The Discovery Museum and Planetarium
4450 Park Avenue
Bridgeport, CT
Constructed from old machine parts, kitchen utensils, furniture scraps, lighting fixtures, medical supplies, toys and carnival figurines, Gerberich mixes the aesthetics of contemporary sculpture with the principles of simple mechanical motion. From a pack rat's treasure trove of motors, toys, and other bric-a-brac, Gerberich is an alchemist of odds and ends and always searching for possibilities. A self-proclaimed lover of hand tools or any useful invention without a power cord, his Brooklyn studio in Williamsburg is his own treasure trove of machine parts, motors, fixtures, lampshades, and armies of collectible figurines. He can often search his packed shelves for inspiration, where he turns discarded labor-saving devices into fantastical sculpture.
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THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF MODERNIST CUISINE
July 11, 2014 - TBD
Museum of Science
1 Science Park
Boston, MA
The Photography of Modernist Cuisine reveals the colorful and surprising world of food as you have never seen it before. Accomplished scientist, author, and photographer Nathan Myhrvold uses hyper-magnified shots and cutaway views of food and cooking implements to offer a fresh perspective on familiar food sources. His work is evidence that the intersection of science and art can be as beautiful as it is enlightening. The Photography of Modernist Cuisine was developed by The Cooking Lab, LLC.
Nathan Myhrvold's project was previously featured on Symbiartic's Your Kitchen is a Chem Lab and this is Your Textbook.
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November 21, 2013 - January 19, 2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum
Building N51
265 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA
Melding art, science, history and technology, 5000 Moving Parts features sculptures by Anne Lilly, John Douglas Powers, Takis, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Arthur Ganson in collaboration with sound artist Christina Campanella.
The exhibition looks at the wide range of kinetic art being made now: from work that's concerned entirely with motion and unpredictability, to sculptures that engage with contemporary political topics, to work that brings ancient myth into contemporary life.
EXHIBITS: SOUTH
January 17 - February 28, 2015
Art.Science.Gallery
916 Springdale Road
Building 2 #102
Austin, TX
Ins & Outs is an exploration of scale and interactivity between the micro and macro in our universe. The show will feature original work by the members of Austin-based design studio CogDut (Kyle Carter, Chris Dock Davis and Will Kauber) as well as from a select group of special guest artists (Andrew Craft, Katie Rose Pipkin, Alex Diamond, Sophie Roach and Jen Rachid). The exhibit will include screen-prints on paper, publications and apparel.
CogDut is a design studio with an emphasis on screen printing, style, web, & identity. This practice began from the question "What is our cognitive duty?” CogDut will be Art.Science.Gallery.’s artists in residence for PrintAustin 2015 with new works being created and added to the exhibition throughout the month-long printmaking festival.
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The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon
August, 2014 - TBD
McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
1327 Circle Park Drive
Knoxville, TN
Mark Catesby (1683–1749) was one of the first in a succession of naturalists who sought to illustrate in their art the ecological relationships between plants and animals. This interdependence would be fundamental to the hand-colored copper plate engravings he did for The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, London, 1729–1747. Almost 100 years later, John James Audubon (1785–1851), assisted by his student Joseph R. Mason, accurately painted the environments in which to place the birds illustrated in The Birds of America, London, 1827–1838.
The exhibit features over sixty Catesby prints and Audubon Octavo prints from its collections that illustrate the integration of flora with birds and other animals, in the pull-out drawer case in the entrance to the Decorative Arts gallery.
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through February 22, 2015
Museum of Arts and Sciences
4182 Forsyth Road
Macon, GA
The Art Rocks exhibition explores the earth science of Providence Canyon State Park (in Lumpkin, GA) and the art of en plein aire landscape painting. It is an exhibition of landscape paintings by Professor of Art William Jones alongside a geologic survey of the canyons by Professor of Earth Sciences Dr. James Hyatt, both from Eastern Connecticut State University. These two faculty members spent years investigating the art and sciences of the canyons. Rocks and Minerals from the Museum’s Education Collection are also on display.
EXHIBITS: MIDWEST
March 6 - April 25, 2015
Thomas McCormick Gallery
835 W. Washington Boulevard
Chicago, IL
30 new paintings that celebrate connectivity to nature by examining color and structure in micro-macro relationships. These colorful and highly textured works of art utilize pigments generated by remediating polluted streams in Ohio. Sabraw has been collaborating with environmental engineers in a ongoing effort to establish a self-funding process that cleans toxic sludge from streams polluted from improperly sealed coal mines, and turns that sludge into valuable pigments
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LEONARDO DA VINCI: Man-Inventor-Artist-Genius
January 24 – May 17, 2015
Alden B. Down Museum of Science & Art
1801 W. Saint Andrews Rd.
Midland, MI
On April 15, 1452, a man was born who changed the world like no-one else before: Leonardo da Vinci. Born in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, this farmer’s son grew to become one of the greatest geniuses of all times. He was an artist, sculptor, architect, art historian, natural scientist, musician, writer and inventor. The exhibition showcases Leonardo’s inventions, ingenuity, artwork & more, including:
60 invention models, mostly interactive
23 artistic masterpieces replicated to scale
4 interactive computer stations, with simulations of his inventions
Movie theater presenting a documentary film of his science and art works
Time room chronologically presenting historical and personal events in Leonardo’s lifetime
Leonardo’s little-known musical compositions
Special viewings of Leonardo’s iconic, The Last Supper will take place Feb. 1 & 8 at 2 p.m.
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February 6 - May 17, 2015
Reedy Gallery
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
3675 Arboretum Drive
Chaska, MN
In homage to the beauty of the botanical world's most bizarre flora, the Garden invited members of the American Society of Botanical Artists to participate in a study of the eccentric, creating works of art based on visually unusual plants chosen by the artists themselves. View the results of their efforts—46 captivating paintings and illustrations of exotic specimens. Weird, Wild, and Wonderful invited the artist to seek visually unusual plants and create works of art that celebrate the bizarre, yet beautiful flora of the world. This is the second stop on the exhibit's tour which will be on display in various parts of the country through 2016.
EXHIBITS: WEST
JASON WALKER: On the River, Down the Road
October 3, 2014 - March 1, 2015
Bellevue Arts Museum
510 Bellevue Way NE
Bellevue, WA
Northwest artist Jason Walker is widely celebrated for his skillfully executed ceramic sculpture. Treading a fine line between storytelling and social criticism, Walker's work explores the human experience as reflected in Nature. His painted porcelain works, often taking the form of wild animals domesticated by industry, are simultaneously thought-provoking and unsettling. Bridging the dichotomous worlds of nature and technology represents, for the artist, "a journey to define for myself what it means to be human in the present time."
On the River, Down the Road is a site-specific installation created by Walker, who has transformed the gallery into an enveloping, fantasy-driven world that—through richly detailed narratives and surrealist, apocalyptic imagery—offers an incisive comment on the indelible impact of humanity upon the natural landscape.
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University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Henderson Building
15th and Broadway
Boulder, CO
Catherine Chalmers is a multi-media artist whose work focuses on the complex relationship between nature and culture. Using video, photography, drawing and sculpture, her work aims to give form to the richness, as well as the brutality and indifference that often characterize our connection with animals. She uses art as a medium to explore and expand her involvement with nature and to discover a way to broaden the cultural significance of the non-human world.
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Following in the Bartrams’ Footsteps
December 15, 2014 - February 15, 2015
University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
200 Centennial Drive
Berkeley, CA
This major art exhibition includes forty-four original artworks based on the native plant discoveries made by John and William Bartram in their renowned and influential travels throughout the eastern wilderness between the 1730s and 1790s. On view since April 2013 in five venues across the country, Following in the Bartrams' Footsteps will open at its final venue on December 15, in the beautifully restored Julia Morgan-designed Girton Hall at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley.
Also on view at the Botanical Garden is the 6th annual Plants Illustrated exhibition of Botanical Art featuring work by the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists. This year the pieces will represent plants in the Garden's collection. On display through February 15, 2015.
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TENTACLES: The Astounding Lives of Octopuses, Squid, and Cuttlefishes
April 12, 2014 - September 2016
Monterey Bay Aquarium
886 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA
Journey to a world of undersea magicians, masters of disguise and quick-change artists. Our special exhibition is the largest, most diverse living exhibit ever created to showcase these amazing animals. You won't believe your eyes.
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ELEVATIONS: Art by Lucy Conklin
October 18, 2014 - January 11, 2015
Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center
4901 Breakwater Ave.
Hayward, CA
A walk from Mount Diablo to the Hayward shoreline would cross through many ecosystems, each with their own unique set of inhabitants. Some of these creatures have very specific needs and limited ranges. Others are more adaptable and seem perfectly at home in an urban backyard. This collection of work by science illustrator Lucy Conklin explores the vast array of wildlife in the East Bay, and some of our unusual visitors. Whether they are long time residents, returning to their natural habitat after a long hiatus, or an oddity passing through unexplained, their journeys have a story.
EXHIBITS: ABROAD
BLOOD: Not for the Faint-Hearted
October 24, 2014 - January 25, 2015
Science Gallery Dublin
The Naughton Institute
Pearse Street
Trinity College
Dublin, Ireland
BLOOD took us by surprise. In developing this exhibition, we’ve been amazed by the diversity of ways that blood can captivate. From artists to surgeons, designers to scientists — in any two contexts blood has an entirely different meaning. It can be a life-saving donation, or an obsession with the undead, a taboo or a commodity. Sometimes its symbolism is treated ironically, while other times it is grotesque, mythical or medical.
Know of something we haven't listed here? Send me an email at symbiartic (dot) km (at) gmail (dot) com, or tweet me @eyeforscience with the deets. If it's scienceart related, it's fair game.