Chemistry in Art Introduction to the Virtual Art Exhibition
We are pleased and excited to present the virtual exhibition “Chemistry in Art” which continues and expands HYLE’s aspiration to promote a dialogue among the disciplines by now including the work of practicing visual artists. With this exhibition HYLE’s special issue on “Aesthetics and Visualization in Chemistry” (Nos. 9.1 & 9.2) transcends the usual boundaries of scholarly journals and provides an alternate mode for reflecting on the aesthetics of chemistry that might otherwise be neglected by academicians. It is our hope that the inclusion of artistic works will not only appeal to, and satisfy, the aesthetic impulses of those of us who are already involved in the study of chemistry, but also broaden the conversation to include others who might feel marginalized by scholarly discourse. Toward this end, we present fourteen contemporary visual artists who each reflect on chemistry with a distinct artistic and conceptual perspective. Since 1986, when the entire Biennale di Venezia was devoted to “Arte e Scienza”, the relationship between science and art has been the focus of the art world. Even if one excludes the various popularizations of science and electronic media art projects, which are often also classified under the heading ‘art and science’, the topic has been the recipient of extraordinary attention from curators, gallery directors, and cultural critics. There are museums, societies, journals, magazines, foundations, and annual awards, and there have been countless conferences, symposia, and exhibitions devoted to the exploration of the relationship between art and science. Examples of recent art exhibitions are Laboratorium , a participatory exhibition that took place throughout the city of Antwerpen, Belgium, in the summer of 1999 and which explored the convergence/divergence of art in science within the framework of the literal and conceptual laboratory (Obrist & Vanderlinden 2001); Weird Science ( 1999), an exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan of four artists’ work that adopt “the practices of science” in order to critique “the influence, authority, and effects of the scientific field” (Apel 1999, p. 11); Unnatural Science where artists presented quasi-science at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (2000