PLAZA The Chimera: GALLERY Gene Culture: Chimera: 1)(0) o fire-breothing she-manster Fordham College in Greek mythalagy hoving o lian 's heod, o at Lincoln Center Molecular Metaphor gaot's bady, ond o serpent's toi/. (b) on I I 3 West 60th St imoginory manster campaunded a( incangru­ New York City in Visual aus ports. 2) on iIIusian ar (obricotian a( the mind, esp. on unreolizoble dreom. 3) on indi­ viduol argon ar port cansisting a( tissues a( diverse genetic canstitutian. I

The practice of art over the last several decades has relied heavily on techniques of recontextualization. The transforma­ tion of material into metaphor by cutting and pasting is a procedure known as col­ lage. ln collage, aspects of one image are substituted and reconfigured as part of an­ other. Originating with the Dadaists and Surrealists, this technique creates images which are psychologically, philosophically and aesthetically complex. Collage and film editing are similar. They both join dis­ parate elements in space and time and in doing so seemingly fuse fact with fiction. Collage is not merely a style. It has had profound perceptual effects.

ln his photocollage, Germon Notural His­ tary, 1934, (fig. I) John Heartfield portrays members of the German govemment in three biological stages of development .. Following the evolution diagrammed in the photograph, Heartfield comments on the inevitability of Hitler's rise to power by linking the Weimar Republic with fascism.2 Here metamorphosis links natural history and politicai power. The politician is joined to the insect and a visual mutation, a chimera, is created.

The chimera has appeared once again, not just in art but in . A recent exam­ pie has been created by Dr. David Ow, a biologist at the University of Califomia, Berkeley. He has fused the genetic mate­ rial of a firefiy and a tobacco plant forming phosphorescent plants. By understanding the ways in which aspects of one biologi­ cal kingdom can be useful to another, the goal of this type of research is to combat disease. Nevertheless, these experiments, by breaking boundaries, change our relationship to living matter. For ex­ ample, if one is a strict vegetarian, would one be violating one's principies by eating ter Than One. Copyright, normally associ­ ence and on a commodity-based culture. atomato whose genetic material has ated with the protection of artistic intel­ Are these popular culture items the life been altered with flounder genes for pur­ lectual property, has now been extended that is saved after Noah's flood? poses of frostproofing? If art and science to biology. Gene sequences, once they can both use the collage technique, are are translated into a letter script can be , from the Latin, meaning not the boundaries between them patented. "colored bodies" come in different sizes blurred? Is not gene splicing in some way and shapes-styles in a manner of speak­ an art form? Is life not imitating art? The current artistic practice of appropria­ ing-and serve as a template for ali life tion, or the copying of one artist's style by forms. Steve Millers Portrait oflsabel Gold­ The genetic metaphor is of great interest another, is a form of cloning, a benign pla­ smith, 1994, represents a direct view of to artists today. The field is broad enough giarism. It tests the notion of the copy­ chromosomes as seen under the to encompass a variety of styles, materiais right while at the same time challenging electron microscope. During their mo­ and ideologies. We are used to looking at the accepted value of originality. Appro­ ment of replication, which as a process illustrations in Scientific American or micro­ priation may copy form but it does not has the dynamism of dance, the chromo­ scopic photographs and remarking on copy intent or historical contexto Ronald somes elongate, form chains and then their beauty. The art in this show, al­ jones', Untided (Core of the Human Retro­ replicate into identical pairs. Miller has though often beautiful, is not about that. virus), 1989, may look like a Brancusi, but been working with a variety of technologi­ Rather it uses the visual language of sci­ it operates on totally different principies. cal imaging devices, from the sonogram to ence to help us understand the complex While the Brancúsi was created as a tran­ the CAT scan. He reduces life to a series social codes of our culture. scendent, almost spiritual form, the jones of clues. is secular in the extreme. It is a casting in The Copy and the Copyright bronze of the HIV virus. He seems to be Cytogenetics deals with the structure of Copy I) An imitation, transcript or reproduc­ saying, how can something with such chromosomes and molecular tion of an original work (as a letter, a paint­ beautiful form be so deadly? The jones is deals with smaller units known as genes. ing, a piece offumiture or a dress. 2) one of a unique object, the virus it portrays de­ They are represented or mapped in differ­ a series of mechanical reproductions of an stroys by replication. ent ways. Molecular genetics codes the original impressiono sequences of genes by using four letters Copyright I) The exclusive legal right to re­ The GeneticlAesthetic Matrix: 7 representing the nucleotide bases A, T, produce, publish and sell the matter and Genetics: I) The scientific study of heredity G, or c.a Each person embodies his or form ofo literary, musical or artistic work. 2) Related to or determined by the origin, her own particular variation of the se­ Clone: I) A group ofgenetically identical developmenc or causal antecedent of quence, making every individual biologi­ cells or organisms 011 descended from a something 3) Coined by William Bateson cally unique. Kevin Clarke's photographs single common ancestral cell or organism. in 1902 combine a laboratory-derived alphabetical 2) genetically engineered replicas of DNA : I) a branch of philosophy deal­ sequence with a symbolic icon. ln Portrait sequences3 ing with the of beauty, art and toste; ofJeff Koons, 1994, a cash register is su­ coined in 1825 by Baumgarten. perimposed on a molecular printout, de­ An article in The New York Times, on Sun­ rived from a sample of the subject's blood. day, October 24, 1993, described the Genetic material, microscopic in scale, ln Clarke's portraits, the self is portrayed cloning of the first human embryo.4 This can be made visible by a number of labo­ as the combination of intemal biological method, although common in animal ratory methods, mapping devices, and language and a logo that represents the breeding or occurring naturally in identical diagrammatic models. Each representa­ person's identity in the world. twins raises serious ethical questions con­ tion focuses on different leveis of cellular ceming the integrity of life. Since em­ and molecular organization. The double DNA sequencing, can also appear as a se­ bryos can be frozen and used at a later helix is probably the most popular repre­ ries of band pattems arranged in discrete time, identical twins could be bom years sentation of DNA. Although it can never lanes. As a genetic fingerprint technique, apart.5 Cloning, however, is not the only be visualized through a microscope, it has this method of visualization is used in fo­ way to copy genetic information. PCR become the twentieth century's iconic rensic science to establish identity and (polymerase chain reaction) does in the molecule. ln T ony Cragg's, Code Noah, family relationships. Dennis Ashbaugh en­ laboratory flask what the Xerox machine 1988, (fig. 3), stuffed animais cast in larges images taken from sequencing gels. does in the office. 6 Andy Warhol's replica­ bronze are welded together in aspirai These result in a distribution pattem simi­ tion of images (fig. 3) by photosilkscreen­ chain. Consisting of two intersecting lar to a photographer's gray scale. Using ing, to ali intents and purposes clones the bands, this refers to the physical color as if it were a laboratory stain, Mona Usa and a host of other cultural structure of the DNA molecule. It is play­ Ashbaugh's paintings replace technology's icons. As a title of his says , Thirty Are Bet- fui and scary. It is a comment both on sci- coolness with the sensuality of color and the impact of scale.

2 (fig.2) (fig.3) "Code Noah", 1988 "Thirty Are Better Than One", 1963 bronze Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas 129 1/2" x 39 1/3" x 39 1/3" 9' 2" x 7' 10 1/2" Collection Mr. and Mrs. Ware T ravelstead, New York Private Collection Courtesy: Marion Goodman Gallery Courtesy: Artist's Rights Source

ln representing a genetic pedigree, a dia­ Using glass, steel and print, Eve Andrée tury science, when the homunculus and gram is created that traces successive gen­ Laramée questions the power of scientific the prefonmation theory of conception erations. By creating composites of family authority in her laboratory tableaux. Us­ figured prominently.: histories, traits may be selected out as ing alchemical apparatus, in Science of Ap­ "(it wos) believed thot humon beings desirable or undesirable. This concept proximotion, 1994, Laramée points up the were creoted by God ot once, ot the be­ when applied to animais is called breeding, ambiguity in measurement. Is the labora­ ginning of time. Preexisting tiny germs when applied to it is called eu­ tory the place where scientific truths are (the fobled homunculO were immoteriol/y genics. Eugenics, needless to say, has a found? Is it a secular equivalent of a encosed in molds, or boxed - os on questionable social and moral history. ln church? Like Marcel Duchamp, whose emboitment- within the egg woiting to Thunder Rumble, 1994, Nicolas Rule, relies works used language and complex visual be oàuolized by the mole sperm. Com­ on family history to draw the blood lines puns to expose language's indetenminacy, ing forth simply meont thot beings were of race horses. The lines connecting dif­ Laramée sets up a laboratory intent on unveiled, reveoled ar unfalded in succes­ ferent generations are drawn in red. They questioning the paradigms of experimen­ sive temporal generatians."9 seem to follow gravity and drip like real tai science. By intenmixing quantifiable This conception of morphology is evident blood. Conceptual and diagrammatic, truth with intuition and belief. Laramée in Enman's work through her portrayal of Rule's work creates the visuallineage of a opens up possibilities. the cell as an architectural bubble. En­ specialized and rarefied commodity, the cased within, body parts are suspended as race horse. For this artist, painting is an­ Geraldine Enman's sculptural pieces, can uncanny nightmares. other rare and specialized commodity op­ be discussed in tenms of eighteenth cen- erating in a system of scarcity and manipu­ lation. 3 George Gessert is an artist who works They expose the hidden world of muscle There is a new language afoot What is rt? with living DNA Cuttivating irises, as generation. ln a miniature test tube (a pi­ Is there a connection between biology Edward Steichen did with delphiniums, pette) , Grey placed two proteins, actin and art? When Robert Rauschenberg Gessert's experiment-like activrties extend and myosin, which are the macromol­ said that he wanted to operate in the gap the definrtion of live art. Performance art, ecules responsible for the formation of between art and life, what does that which converts gesture and body into real muscle tissue. He then videotaped these mean now? The definitions of art and life time, shares with breeding qualrties of the proteins going through a process of self­ are inescapably vague. Is a virus a living ephemeral. Some of George Gessert's organization in which contraction, one of entrty? Is a genetically attered organism in actions have been called "genetic graf­ muscle's properties, repeats rtsel( There some way a work of art? We inturtively frti" .1O He has taken irises that he has is a freeze-frame qualrty to this work that grasp the ways in which both art and sci­ cross-pollinated and has distributed them recalls the stop-motion photographs of ence spill out of the studio and the labora­ into wildemess areas. He has gently inter­ the nineteenth century photographer, tory and into our lives. Inevitably moral vened into an ecosystem. His goals are Eadward Muybridge. However, unlike and ethical questions are raised. They are aesthetic rather than practical. How has Muybridge's, Grey's photo-sets are not there and we must deal wrth them. nature been changed? based on extemal locomotion. He cre­ ates a muscular system outside the body Chris Doyle's video installation, Greenboth­ and in full view. Artificial life studies self­ Suzanne Anker ing (the Kingdom-Switch Cyele) 1994, is an organizing behavior as clu~s to the ways November 1994, NYC attempt to replicate metaphorically the in which narratives of behavior are devel­ photosynthetic cycle in human beings. oped and information is stored in The installation consists of two wall­ memory. mounted monrtors, both of which face upwards. The first has a tray of water Robert Lawrence's Scripts for Performance, containing green algae placed on the top are printed texts that question the use of of the lighted screen. The second plays a genetically-engineered life forms. They re­ tape showing a person crouching in a veal deep anxiety about the sacred and small basin which contains chlorophyll, al­ personal implications of these forms in gae and water. As the person scrubs his modem society. Lawrence asks questions skin, he appears to bleed from the abra­ that have no real answers and makes sions (this "bleeding" is computer gener­ statements that give no real comfort. ated.) The basin becomes a srte of fiuid "Ask yourself how deep you would want the exchange- blood is lost as chlorophyll is hole if you were burying genetically altered absorbed through the skin. The artist bocteria. Ask yourself how deep you would traces this blood-chlorophyll transposrtion, want the hole to be ifit were your grave." to a piece of writing by the French phi­ losopher-critic Simone Weil: Science has always presented rtself meta­ Acknowledgements: "The source of man's moral energy is phorically-an experiment is only a repre­ I wish to express my gratitude to outside him, like that of his physical en­ sentative of a natural processo Science has Fordham College at Lincoln Center for ergy (food, air, etc). He generally pnds it also continually diagrammed rtsel( Mod­ presenting this art exhibrtion, which is the and that is why he has the iIIusion-os eis, maps, charts and schema are an inte­ first devoted to the intersection between on the physical plane-that his being grai part of the success of scientific com­ aesthetics and genetics. I wish to express carries the principie of preseNation munication. Those representations, while sincere thanks to ali the individuais, within itself Privation alone makes him seemingly objective, are not neutral. tt is galleries and instrtutions who generously feel his need. And in the end of priva­ art's role to question the unquestioned gave of their time and loaned works to tion, he cannot help tuming to anything and to explore the role of visual meta­ this exhibrtion: Bill Conlon, Danielle whatever which is edible. There is only phor. The new science of genetics pro­ Dimston, Christine de Lignieres. T rish one remedy for that A chlorophyll-confer­ vides a particularly fertile field for this artis­ Garcia, Frank Gillette, Richard Kalina, ring faculty of feeding on light" II tic investigation. Art now has had a cen­ Dr. David Ow, Marisa Dei Re Gallery, tury's worth of experience dealing wrth Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Marion Michael Joaquin Grey is interested in in­ abstraction-with systems rather than Goodman Gallery, Paul Kasmin Gallery, venting self-organizing systems, art objects outward appearances. T wentieth century Andrea Rosen Gallery, Sonnabend similar to artificial life ~2 Self-Organizing Sys­ science deals with objects and systems Gallery, TZ' Art & Co.Gallery, Elga tem: Ampcial Muscle , 1991, is a set of that are both smaller and larger than Wimmer Gallery, and Artist's Righfs photo-stills, made from a videotape. those which we normally encounter in Source. our world. Art is well-posrtioned to un­ derstand this. 4 (fig. I ) "German Natural History, " Arbeiter-lIIustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ, Prague), August 16, 1934. Courtesy: A rtist's Rights Source

Suzanne Anker is a sculptor who writes about Geraldine Erman is the recipient of a 1994/1995 Eve Andrée Laramée has received artist-in-resi­ the intersection of art and biology. She is Co­ Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Sculpture . dence fellowship awards from the Guggenheim Director of Theoretical Studies in Art . an interdis­ She is also the recipient of the Rome Prize Fellow­ Museum (Chesterwood. MA), the John Michael ciplinary seminar program hosted by White Col­ ship. the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and an Kohler Center. and New York Experimental umns in NYC. She teaches Art H istory and NEA. among others. She has recently been a full­ Glass Workshop. She is represented by TZ· Art Theory at SV A. time lecturer at M.l.T in the School of Architecture/ and CO. Gallery. Programo Oennis Ashbaugh is an abstract painter showing Robert Lawrence studied humanities at Berkeley with Marisa Dei Re Galjery. He collaborated with George Gessert did graduate work in horticulture. and art at Ue. San Diego. He is a recipient of a William Gibson on Agrippa: A Book or che Dead. in He has received a New Langdon Interdisciplinary Bush Artist Fellowship. an NEAlRockefeller Grant which he supplied the text in the form of a genetic Grant (San Francisco). an Experimental Visual Arts for Interdisciplinary Projects and several Jerome code. Fellowship frem the Oregon Arts Commission and Foundation Grants.. He teaches at Minneapolis has written several articles for Leonardo. College of Art and Design. Kevin Clarke studied sculpture at Cooper Union and participated with Joseph Beuys in the Frie Uni­ William Gibson is a science fiction writer who Steve Miller's work was the subject of a retro­ versitat during the sixth Documenta in Germany. coined the term cyberspace. His novels include spective at Espace Art Brenne in France, this year. He is author of The Red Couch. A Portraic or America Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Usa Overdrive. and L'Origine du Monde. a ten year survey. 1984-1994. (1984) in which he photographed a cross-section Buming Chrome. focused on Miller's medical imaging processes. He of Americans. on a red couch he lugged across the is represented by Elga Wimmer Gallery. continent. Michael Joaquin Grey studied genetics at the University of Califomia at Berkeley and received his Nicolas Rule. bom in Birmingham. England. exhibits Chris Ooyle received a Master's degree in Archi­ M.FA at Yale. He is represented by Barbara Glad­ regularly in Europe as well as the United States. He tecture from 's Graduate School stone Gallery. He is the winner of the 1994 Gold­ has shown at Galleria Paolo Gentile, in Florence of Design. Primarily an installation artist . his exhibi­ en Nica Award. Computerimages. ARS Electronica. and Galerie Albert Baronian. in Brussels. He is tions include P.s. I Museum. The New Museum of Austria represented by the Paul Kasmin Gallery. . and Art in the Anchorage. Creative Time. Ronald Jones teaches sculpture at . His work integrates scientific . politicai and popular culture systems. He is represented by Sonnabend Gallery.