27 February 2013
Art and natural history explored in lecture to accompany exhibitions
A public lecture looking at the relationship between art and natural history will take place at the University of Dundee next week.
Entitled 'Subsculpture: Assembling a Museum of Attractions', it will be given by Dr Petra Lange-Berndt, a lecturer in Art History at University College, London, at the D'Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre on Monday, 4th March.
The lecture is being held to accompany two exhibitions the University is currently hosting that features artists inspired by natural science, and in particular by its first professor of biology, D'Arcy Thompson.
Matthew Jarron, Curator of Museum Services at the University, said, "Since the early twentieth century, artists have been commenting critically on the public displays of natural history museums, exploring issues such as the favouring of photogenic species, or the role of the museum in colonial conquest.
"Focusing particularly on the work of artists Mark Dion and Mike Kelley, Dr Lange-Berndt will discuss the importance of such approaches to contemporary art curation. While museums often see themselves as controlled environments, the ambivalence of taxidermied animals and other natural history collections often provides a focus for more disruptive impulses.
"By considering the history of related natural history displays in grottoes, side shows, fun fairs and curiosity shops, she will explore whether static displays about nature can become active, changing projects. Can artists and curators reclaim different histories that challenge the dominant norms?"
Dr Petra Lange-Berndt is the author of Animal Art 1850-2000 (2009) and co-organiser of the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Research Network Cultures of Preservation: the Afterlife of Specimens between Art and Science since the Eighteenth Century. She also runs the Preserved! website bringing art and natural history together online.
The University's Tower Foyer Gallery is currently showing work from painter Mark Wright. He draws on visual imagery sourced from organic structures and forms, and ideas of visual perception and concepts of beauty are explored in the exhibition 'Unnatural Wonders'.
Three artists who work in various media but use drawing as a starting point to help understand the natural world are being exhibited in the Lamb Gallery. The exhibition, 'Drawn from Structures Living and Dead', takes its title from a section of D'Arcy Thompson's seminal book 'On Growth and Form'.
'Subsculpture: Assembling a Museum of Attractions' takes place at the D'Arcy Thompson lecture Theatre at 5.30pm on Monday, 4th March. Admission is free and open to all.
For further information please email museum@dundee.ac.uk or call 01382 384310.
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