AxS: At the Intersection of Art and Science
June 26 – September 4
Opening reception, Saturday, June 25, 7–9 p.m.
Co-organized with the California Institute of Technology
Jay Belloli and Stephen Nowlin, curators

This exhibition features artists whose existing work explores the shifting boundaries between two of humanity’s oldest disciplines: art and science. There was a time when art and science were closely aligned, and often practiced by the same people. Leonardo da Vinci is a well-known example of this. After more than a century of growing intellectual specialization the relationship between art and science has become distant and the practitioners of each estranged However, science has recently exposed society to unprecedented change and provocative new ideas, and as a result artists have begun to engage with science as part of their creative inquiry. AxS explores this artistic investigation while considering new methods of scientific outreach, as well as the increasing understanding of how art and science can influence one another. The Armory's segment of the exhibition includes artists Russell Crotty, Eric Johnson, Nancy Macko and Robert Valenza, Karl S. Mihail and Tran T. Kim-Trang, Olga Seem, and Catherine Wagner.

Russell Crotty, an amateur astronomer, makes large drawings of the surfaces of planets on monumental spheres based on his observations through a telescope. Eric Johnson creates sculptures inspired by recent discoveries in astronomy and cosmology. Nancy Macko and Robert Valenza unite landscape and skyscape with mathematics. Karl Mihail and Tran Kim-Trang explore the implications of genetic engineering. Olga Seem 's study of botany provides natural forms that she reinterprets in her paintings, while Catherine Wagner explores small biological forms in photography.

The exhibition also encompasses a number of collaborative education programs, such as an Armory class taught by Caltech robotics graduate student AnnMarie Polsenberg Thomas, and other Studio classes linked by theme to the exhibition. At Caltech, noted technology-based artist Jim Campbell creates a site-specific installation. Stephen Nowlin, director of the Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design, serves as a consultant to Caltech for the AxS exhibition. This will be the first in a series of collaborative projects between Caltech and the Armory.