COMPLEXITY – Artists Explore Complex Systems, Museum Exhibition is First of its Kind
NEW PALTZ — Ellen K. Levy and Philip Galanter have organized COMPLEXITY, the first major fine art museum exhibition featuring artists’ explorations of complex systems and emergence. COMPLEXITY will take place at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz from September 14 through November 24, 2002.
Included are prescient works by Hans Haacke and Woody and Steina Vasulka plus contemporary works by Mauro Annunziato, Manuel Baez, Jonathan Callan, Nancy Chunn, Janet Cohen, Philip Galanter, Frank Gillette, David Goldes, Paul Hertz, Ellen K. Levy, Brian Lytle, Daro Montag, Jack Ox, Daniel Reynolds, Marianne Selsjord, John F. Simon Jr., Karl Sims, Nell Tenhaaf, Leo Villareal, and a collaboration by Remo Campopiano, Guy Marsden, and Jonathan Schull.
The study of complexity creates bridges across many branches of science and also offers a revolutionary intellectual vector that has ramifications for other disciplines such as art and philosophy. Complex systems are those that include large numbers of components interacting in nonlinear ways, often leading to unexpected behavior. In common language one is reminded of the saying that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Examples of complex systems are familiar to everyone and include weather prediction, the stock market, evolution, the mind, and the rise and fall of cultures and empires. In recent years artists have paid significant attention to a number of now familiar technologies (e.g., the World Wide Web, genetic engineering and biotechnology, virtual reality, and robotics). But the deeper current of complexity, one with far reaching implications across the physical, biological, and social sciences, is only now beginning to gain public recognition.
COMPLEXITY showcases work by artists dealing with interrelated systems and employing a variety of media including video, photography, digital prints, painting, electronics, sculpture, and even a living ant colony. COMPLEXITY is an inclusive, cross-disciplinary artistic attempt to explore commonalities among complex systems across all scales and levels of hierarchy.
FACTS AT A GLANCE:
COMPLEXITY – An exhibition co-organized by Ellen K. Levy and Philip Galanter
Dates: September 14, 2002 through November 24, 2002
Organizers Ellen K. Levy and Philip Galanter are complexity artists living in New York City.
Neil C. Trager is the Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.
Participating Artists: Mauro Annunziato, Manuel Baez, Jonathan Callan, Nancy Chunn, Janet Cohen, Philip Galanter, Frank Gillette, David Goldes, Hans Haacke, Paul Hertz, Ellen K. Levy, Brian Lytle, Daro Montag, Jack Ox, Daniel Reynolds, Marianne Selsjord, John F. Simon Jr., Karl Sims, Nell Tenhaaf, Steina Vasulka, Woody Vasulka, and Leo Villareal, and a collaboration by Remo Campopiano, Guy Marsden, and Jonathan Schull.
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art SUNY New Paltz 75 S. Manheim Blvd. Suite 9 New Paltz, NY 12561 845-257-3844 www.newpaltz.edu/museum