FEATURE
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THE POWER OF OBJECTS
A gateway of sorts frames the entrance to the Spencer Museum of Art. Two banners illustrating the lower bodies of two men — more affectionately known by many of the Spencer staff as "the guys in Speedos" — both greet and shock museum visitors.
These images, part of the xy exhibition, which runs till Oct. 4, takes a scientific idea — male sexuality is determined by the X and Y chromosomes — and uses art to ask what it means to be a man and how visual representations affect our view of male sexuality.
The xy exhibition is one example of the many recent collaborations between art and science happening at the Spencer.
"We are in the unique position to use objects—and relatively interesting objects—to investigate issues related to and involving art," says Kate Meyer, print room curatorial assistant at the museum.
Last spring, the Spencer used the power of objects to explore issues like climate change and environmental sustainability with three innovative partnerships. Climate Change at the Poles, A Greenland Glacier and Trees and Other Ramifications all illustrated how different approaches to subjects create new ways of looking at ideas for both artists and scientists.
For example, with A Greenland Glacier, the Spencer commissioned photographer Terry Evans to work with the on-campus Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) during its research on the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. Evans' photographs of ice fiords leading into the glacier are equally breathtaking and haunting; virtually no human presence is documented and yet the human threat on these disappearing landscapes is apparent. Her photographs, like the images compiled by CReSIS on the same
trip, examine the effects humans have on fragile ecosystems. Her artistic rendering attempts to question how art can be used to communicate these ideas.
With works like Evans' photographs, says Steve Goddard, senior curator of prints and drawings, the Spencer wants to move away from the idea that art only illustrates things.
"Today, the questions are so big that no one discipline can answer them," Goddard says.
Because we learn so naturally from images, collaborations between science and art enable us to work toward finding solutions for these questions as well to ask others. For instance, The Graphic Imperative: International Posters for Peace, Social Justice and the Environment, 1965-2005, on display till Nov. 29, addresses a multitude of themes and concerns, including health, AIDS and the environment.
Ultimately, as the Spencer plans future collaborations with scientists and becomes more of an integral part of campus, the power and beauty of objects is what makes science and art so well-matched.
"Art adds a sort of dignity and emotion to the objects that scientists also look at," Meyer says. "By using these objects to address functional ideas like climate change and trees, we can look at them from different angles and ask, 'How do we feel about them?'""Jp