‘A Field Guide to Observing Art’ at McMaster

After a series of delays and hints over the past week or so on this blog, I’m glad to finally have a sufficient window of opportunity to say a few things about A Field Guide to Observing Art at the McMaster Museum of Art. While I’ve already commented in passing on this exhibition’s value as an instrument of developing an art-making discourse in a university setting, there’s a great deal to be said for the participatory pleasures of the show, as both an investigative game and a spectacle catering to those with a deep-seeded science kink (myself included).

Eadward Muybridge, Plate 611. Animals and movement, horses trotting; sulky; gray mare, “Katydid”, 1887

Curated by Dianne Bos, who also collaborated with McMaster astrophysicist Doug Welch on their adjoining recreation of the Tycho supernova of 1572 in Light Echo, the exhibition is a compilation of thirty-two works sourced from the McMaster Museum’s permanent collection selected to stir considerations of the nebulous shared space of art and science. Field Guide is all about forging new connections among unique objects, guided by Bos’ friendly curatorial notes encouraging the viewer to assess her choices with inquisitive openness: ‘There are reasons for placing some of them side by side, reasons which you may or may not agree with. The important thing is to get out into the field and observe with fresh eyes.’

Observation is very much a key element of the exhibition, as evinced by the viewing platform dominating the centre of the gallery space. Signage not unlike that in natural history museums provides information on the works grouped under five classifications - Optics, Physiology, Biology, Geography and The Scientific Aesthetic - while telescopes provide the opportunity to scrutinize intense details of selected works. Leaving aside the fact that the telescopes themselves are undeniably sexy objects, viewing art through telescopes is perhaps the clearest iteration of the show’s edict to blur art and science; beyond the scientific tradition echoed in the act, the sum result of seeing the minute brushstrokes of Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, Effet de Soleil through a telescope from the opposite corner of the gallery is one of visual pleasure at its most visceral. In fusing scopophilia with scientific method, this element of the exhibition suggests the motive underscoring all intellectual pursuits, a common human desire for gratification in all things.

While works like the Monet (complete with personal body guard at the opening) are old familiars of McMaster’s collection (both Naum Gabo’s Monument to the Astronauts and an untitled Alexander Rodchenko painting kicked me clear back to my first year as an undergraduate), they are joined by some heretofore unknown treasures, of which I’m starting to suspect the Museum has many. The new-to-me discoveries run the gamut from oddball historical gems like Rochus van Veen’s meticulous miniature watercolour insects from the mid-17th century to Andy Goldsworthy’s Leaf House, a spiral construction of leaves, branches and thorns that must be one hell of a conservationist’s nightmare.

Arnaud Maggs, Cercles chromatiques de M.E. Chevreul, 2006. Series of 11 Ultrachrome digital photographs

The most recent acquisition in Field Guide is also one of the most striking works in the exhibition. Arnaud Maggs’ series of eleven photographic extracts from M.E. Chevreul’s 1861 study on colour theory are reproductions of an historical study with an enduringly contemporary character. Chevreul’s research on the simultaneous perception of colour and his development of the 72-spoke colour wheel are indispensable in the evolution of painting from the 19th century onward - as demonstrated by Bos’ delight in pairing that Monet with Bridget Riley - and the formal qualities of the grouped images echoes elements of minimalist art in its repetitious cataloguing of pure visual elements.

Ultimately, it is the borrowing and exchange of method that draws together the all the works included in Field Guide. Some reveal how a scientific strategy can produce a work of art, while others highlight the efforts of artists as a form of scientific discourse in themselves. That there is no single dominant aesthetic among the many approaches shown here - some are clinical, others downright decadent - is proof enough that the merging of disciplines does not limit creativity, but rather opens artistic production to unforeseen innovations.

FRESH / LATEST POSTS

Archives

Blogroll