From the Lab to the Studio: Abstraction and Scientific Inquiry

This session seeks panelists who will illuminate through specific case studies or broader theoretical arguments the practices of modern and contemporary artists who trained in the sciences before turning to or while artmaking. Of particular interest are artists working with conceptualist strategies and languages of abstraction. Twentieth-century examples in the U.S. include Nancy Holt (1938-2014) and Kenneth Young (1933-2017) who, respectively, studied biology and physics as undergraduates and Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015) who completed graduate studies in public health and parasitology. How and why do the artists of interest turn to abstraction and conceptualist methods? How do their trainings in sciences affect their practices? What do these artists teach us about attending to biological and medical humanities in art’s histories? Panelists may examine the conditions under which artists move away from studies or careers in the sciences and towards the arts. Do artists turn to artistic strategies because they exceed the realm of science and its commitment to fact-finding in some way? Does abstraction become a path of (extra-)scientific inquiry? Or, are there artists whose scientific careers occur in tandem with their artmaking with palpable and revealing crossovers? During a period of governance where abundant creativity, historical fact, and scientific processes are under attack, panelists may also consider what possibilities exist in bringing these disciplines’ methods together, and how they might illuminate a way through intellectual and ethical challenges facing us today.