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P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center presents Signatures of the Invisible, an
exhibition born of an extensive collaboration between artists of the
London Institute, the world's largest college of art and design, and
physicists from CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in
Geneva, Switzerland), the world's largest particle physics center. The
exhibition presents artistic responses to scientific phenomena.
The initiative began in 1999 and resulted
in a group of artworks first exhibited at Atlantis Gallery, London; and
then at Tshinghua University, Beijing; Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome;
Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva; Gulbenkian Gallery, Lisbon; and now at
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.
Though the events considered in
contemporary theoretical physics are often so small that they are known
only by mathematical "signatures," these concepts have changed
our understanding of nature. While art is generally concerned with the
visible, the artists in this exhibition consider relativity, antimatter,
and quantum mechanics, motivating them to experiment and to rethink
assumptions about how the universe works. These artists visually animate
the interplay between concept and medium and explore previously
"invisible" or inaccessible theories of physics such as new
perceptions of time and space. The works resulting from these
collaborations reach beyond illustration of scientific theories to examine
their meanings through metaphoric imagery.
Participants in the exhibition and
collaboration include Roger Ackling, who burns lines with sunlight
on wood found on beaches and riverbanks with a magnifying glass; Jérôme
Basserode, who presents large metal spinning tops to address the
concept of time and its boundaries; a videotaped conversation between CERN
physicists and John Berger, a distinguished essayist, broadcaster,
artist, novelist, and critic; Sylvie Blocher, a multimedia artist
whose video and film installation pieces explore otherness,
representation, and art's political responsibility; Mel Chin, who,
with hyperaccumulating plants over the three months of this exhibition,
extracts metal from contaminated soil to produce a pencil with which he
will draw; Richard Deacon, a Turner Prize-winning sculptor whose
complex manipulations of surface allude to the human body and industrial
techniques; Patrick Hughes, whose painted reliefs create an optical
illusion of three dimensions; Ken McMullen, an artist and organizer
of the collaboration who is an independent filmmaker and has produced
works with, among others, the French theoretician Jacques Derrida and the
Scottish poet, artist, and gardener Ian Hamilton Findlay; Tim O'Riley,
who explores the relationship between real and visual spaces, often by
incorporating computer technology and optical imaging devices; Paola
Pivi, a 1999-2000 P.S.1 Studio Artist from Italy, has a history of
collaborating with physicists and experiments with energy fields in her
interactive installation; and Bartolomeu dos Santos, who has
produced an impressive body of public art in Portugal, Macau, and Tokyo
using etched stone and ceramic tiles. Other artists in the exhibition
include Monica Sand and Gustav Metzger. Also included in the exhibition is a
project by Leo Villareal, Supercluster, a sequenced light work
installed on the scaffolding that envelops P.S.1's building.
Signatures of the Invisible was
organized by Ken McMullen, Michael Benson, and Grace Adam from the London
Institute, Neil Calder from CERN, and was designed by P.S.1 Director of
Operations Antoine Guerrero, assisted by P.S.1 Project Manager Cornelia
Tischmacher.
This exhibition is made possible by The
London Institute: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins
College of Art and Design, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London
College of Fashion, London College of Printing, and SLAC: Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center. Additional support for Leo Villareal: Supercluster
is provided by Ben and Donna Rosen, John Johnson, and Melva Bucksbaum and
Raymond Learsy.
For more information, please contact
Rachael Dorsey, P.S.1 Press Office, at press@ps1.org
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