Post-Specimen Encounters Between Art, Science and Curating : Rethinking Art Practice and Objecthood Through Scientific Collections

Post-Specimen Encounters in Art, Science and Curating examines the ways in which scientific objects held within museums and other collections act as inspiration to contemporary art practices, curating strategies, and their histories. With cross-disciplinary contributions from art historians, artists, poets, anthropologists, critics, and curators, this volume looks at how artistic encounters in museums, ranging from anatomy museums to contemporary cabinets of curiosity, can provoke new modes of thinking.

In particular, this volume draws upon the concept of the specimen—a paradigmatic object in science—as a way of critically investigating these hybrid art–science practices and a means of innovating the practice of art writing itself. Edward Juler and Alistair Robinson bring together a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives from leading specialists in the visual arts that inspire new understandings of the relationships between art, science, and curating.