The Scientist’s Eye: Dialogues between Art & Science an exhibition of artist and rare books from the Kohler Art Library and Special Collections (Memorial Library)

January 14 – February 16, 2008

The disciplinary division between the visual arts and the natural sciences was not always as strictly demarcated as our contemporary academic conventions might suggest; rather, the line between art and science was blurry, by preference and necessity. Many prime movers of the Scientific Revolution, including Copernicus, Vesalius, Hooke and Descartes saw the visual arts as an essential piece of scientific inquiry and the dissemination of knowledge. The motivation behind The Scientist’s Eye: Dialogues between Art & Science is to explore the visual discourse between artistic expression and scientific inquiry. Many rare books from Special Collections and artists’ books from the Kohler Art Library dialogue directly with one another, creating a transhistorical conversation that indicates the profound interactions between the arts and sciences.

The Scientist’s Eye is presented in conjunction with “Visualizing Science,” an interdisciplinary conference organized by the Visual Culture Center at UW-Madison. For more information about VCC events, please visitwww.visualculture.wisc.edu/events.htm. Funding for The Scientist’s Eye is provided by the Department of Art History at UW-Madison.

There will be an exhibition viewing and curators’ talk in the Kohler Art Library on February 8 at 3:30-4:00 pm.

This exhibition was co-curated by Amy Noell and Beth Zinsli. Amy Noell is a PhD Student in the Department of Art History at UW-Madison. She studies transnational contemporary art and visual culture.  Beth Zinsli is a PhD Student in the Department of Art History at UW-Madison. She studies the global history of photography.

Image from:  J. Mohns.  Cartesian Dreams.  Vinalhaven, Me.: Old Funeral Parlor, 1994.