Monday, Oct 24, 2016
‘The Twenty Most Important Scientific Questions of the 21st Century’ runs Oct. 27-Dec. 11
The Rider University Art Gallery will present an exhibition of works by Judith Brodsky titled “The Twenty Most Important Scientific Questions of the 21st Century” from Thursday, Oct. 27, through Sunday, Dec. 11. The exhibit will include an opening reception on Thursday, Oct. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m. and an artist’s talk on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. Admission is free.
Inspired by a New York Times article addressing this topic, the exhibit includes images that address such questions as “How many body parts can be reproduced? Why do we sleep? How does the brain work? Will we ever settle on Mars?”
“My responses to the questions are often ironic,” Brodsky says. “I'm trying to go beyond the literal question to find an intuitive response that will suggest the limitation of the question itself. The paradigms of knowing the world shift dramatically from era to era. I'm trying to reach beyond the contemporary paradigm in each case to find some cosmic image that will undermine the specificity of the question. I want viewers to go away thinking about the impact and importance of scientific questions in their lives and in the future of the world — about space, about the origins of the universe, about climate, about gender and sexuality, about the extension of life and what it means.”
Judith Brodsky is currently chair of the Board of Directors of the New York Foundation for the Arts, one of the largest organizations in the nation that supports artists in all disciplines. She is a distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Visual Arts at Rutgers University and founding director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, which was renamed the Brodsky Center in her honor. She is also co-founder with Ferris Olin of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art, recently renamed The Rutgers University Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities, and The Feminist Art Project, a national program to promote recognition of women artists, and with Olin, co-organizer and co-curator of The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society (2012), which focused on women artists, filmmakers, writers, and composers of the Middle East. Her work is in the permanent collections of more than 100 museums and corporations, including UCLA, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Library of Congress, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the London School of Design.
The Rider University Art Gallery is located in the Bart Luedeke Center on Rider University’s campus, 2038 Lawrenceville Road, in Lawrenceville, N.J. It is open Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.
Image: Judith Brodksy: “Can Robots Become Conscious,” drawing and digital collage.