Unnatural Science; An Exhibition Spring 2000 - Spring 2001

The format is approximately 9 inches by 10 inches. 125, [3] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Artists' Biographies. Cover has some wear and soiling. Foreword by Joseph Thompson. Works in the Exhibition are by Natalie Jeremijenko, Thomas Grunfeld, Gary Schneider, Michael Oatmen, Peter Frischli and David Weiss, Catherine Chalmers, Eve Andree Laramee, Janine Antoni, Kiki Smith, Matthew Ritchie, Huang Yong Ping, Lim Young-sun, Steina Vasulka, Stacy Levy, and Tim Hawkinson. Laura Steward Heon was an associate curator at Mass MoCA and the organizer of this exhibition. This catalogue also includes an essay chronicling the effect of 20th-century science on visual art, with richly illustrated entries for the 15 works in the exhibition, and biographical entries with exhibition histories and bibliographies of the artists, focusing on the role of the sciences throughout the artists' careers. A massive installation in the newly built and widely acclaimed Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Unnatural Science fills 70,000 square feet of gallery space. This awe-inspiring exhibit is comprised of art created over the past 15 years that exploits scientific narratives and aesthetics, particularly those drawn from genetics. The fifteen works of sculpture, photography, collage and mixed media that make up the exhibition are exquisitely reproduced in this catalog, which features full-page color plates and comprehensive descriptions of each work along with biographies of the artists. Humorous and irreverent, though scientifically well-informed, these works owe much to the playful art of Marcel Duchamp in their use of science as a springboard for fantasy. The depictions of maple trees, taxidermy, human genetic material, chemical reactions, the food chain, and other scientifically based phenomena are both poetic and profound, beautiful and visionary. Drawn from various artists, dealers, collectors and museums from all over the world, the works in Unnatural Science hail a significant trend in contemporary art-one that not only demystifies, but poeticizes science.…