Post-Specimen Encounters Between Art, Science and Curating Rethinking Art Practice and Objecthood through Scientific Collections

Examines how scientific objects in museums and other collections act as inspiration to contemporary art practice, its histories, curating and aesthetics. Cross-disciplinary essays from leading arts professionals explore how scientific encounters in museums provoke new modes of creative thinking about art, science and curating. 84 col. illus.

Post-Specimen Encounters Between Art, Science and Curating examines the ways in which scientific objects held within museums and other collections act as inspiration to contemporary art practices, curating strategies and their histories. With cross-disciplinary contributions from art historians, artists, poets, anthropologists, critics and curators, this volume looks at how artistic encounters in museums, ranging from anatomy museums to contemporary cabinets of curiosity, can provoke new modes of thinking.

In particular, this volume draws upon the concept of the specimen – a paradigmatic object in science – as a way of critically investigating these hybrid art–science practices and a means of innovating the practice of art writing itself. Edward Juler and Alistair Robinson bring together a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives from leading specialists in the visual arts that inspire new understandings of the relationships between art, science and curating.

This edited collection explores a subject of great potential for both art historians and museologists – that of the nature of the specimen and how it might be reinterpreted. Through its cross-disciplinary contributions, written by a team of art historians, artists, poets, anthropologists, critics and curators, this book looks at how artistic encounters in museums, ranging from anatomy museums to contemporary cabinets of curiosity, can provoke new modes of thinking about art, science and curating.

Museological literature in the past focused on artefacts or objects; this is an original contribution to the field and offers new readings of old issues, inspiring new understandings of the relationships between art, science and curating.

Brings together international expertise from art practitioners, historians, creative writers and theorists in France, the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Contributions from creative practitioners draw upon their own experience of producing artworks in response to specific scientific collections while historians, anthropologists, critics and writers examine how museums stimulate, incite and otherwise inspire artistic awareness of science and its specimens.

One of the most important contributions this book will make is drawing together several threads of research and practice to encourage interdisciplinary discussion.

It provides new ways of thinking about the relationships between art, science, museums and their objects. It concentrates on the ways in which scientific collections kindle novel aesthetic strategies and inspire new scholarly interpretations of art, science, curating and epistemology. In so doing it will make a considerable contribution to the fields of art writing, creative practice, art theory, the history of science and curating.

This book will appeal to academics, researchers, undergraduates and postgraduates studying fine art, curating, museology, art history, the history of science, creative writing; visual artists, curators, and other creative practitioners. Also of interest to museum audiences. Reading list potential.