Cosmologies

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“Nature is an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." Blaise Pascal in Pensées (1670) This exhibition explores ways in which artists, both historic and contemporary, have given visual order to the universe by creating personal cosmologies. The show focuses on political, spiritual, and conceptual representations of the Cosmos. The vastness of the universe inspires certain artists to create an ordered system with which to better understand the human relationship to an arcane and limitless world. Historical examples include a mandala of Vajrasattva, a 17th century Tibetan gilt repoussé plaque of the ten syllables of power, 19th century double-sided Jain manuscripts, Mimbres pottery and Robert Fludd’s Macrocosmi Historia (1617). These will serve as historic connective tissue to a broad range of contemporary artists, such as Ingrid Calame, Dawn Clements, Alfred Jensen, Anselm Kiefer, Mark Lombardi, Dominic McGill, Ward Shelley, Robert Smithson, Fred Tomaselli, Sara VanDerBeek, Martin Wilner.

Cosmologies

Allora & Calzadilla, Kamrooz Aram, assume vivid astro focus, Ingrid Calame, Dawn Clements, Simon Evans, Cerith Wyn Evans, Hanxy Holt, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Laleh Khorramian, Anselm Kiefer, Kim Sooja, Yayoi Kusama, Mark Lombardi, Josiah McElheny, Dominic McGill, Matt Mullican, Ad Reinhardt, Matthew Ritchie, Thomas Ruff, Ward Shelley, Shahzia Sikander, Robert Smithson, Fred Tomaselli, Sara Vanderbeek, Martin Wilner, Terry Winters, Adolf Wölfli