"Strange Attractors: Signs of Chaos" 1989
Exhibition Catalog New Museum of Contemporary Art
8 x 9.25 inches. Silkscreened covers. 69 pages; spiral-bound; 28 black and white, 20 color
illustrations With fold-outs and differing sized pages, inserts and paper stocks. Hand
assembled.
Published on occasion of the exhibition “Strange
Attractors: Signs of Chaos.” Traces the history of chaos theory, notes artistic
and philosophical milestones and identifies the crucial scientific issues
embraced by contemporary art. Preface by Marcia Tucker. Gary Indiana, Martin
Meisel and exhibition curator Laura Trippi contribute essays and an interview
with James Welling....Of particular note in
“Strange Attractors: Signs of Chaos” were two site-specific installations. Ann
Hamilton and Kathryn Clark’s “palimpsest,” an installation in two parts, was a
thoughtful meditation on the seemingly random way in which memories are processed
and eventually lost. Inspired by the story of an elderly man who, to combat his
failing memory, put note card reminders on the walls of his home, the artist
pinned hundreds of small sheets of yellowed paper to the walls of a room within
the exhibition. These unidentified fragments of memories, thoughts and bits of
conversation fluttered in the breeze generated by an antique fan. A large glass
vitrine, containing two heads of cabbage being systematically devoured by
countless snails, made poignant reference to the physical deterioration of the
brain’s capacity. The artists also transformed the Window on Broadway into an
understated extension of their work in the gallery.
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