Visionary Anatomies

by Harvey Fineberg, J.D.Talesk, and Michael Sappol
National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 2004
40 pp., illus. $N/C
Exhibition website: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/arts/Visionary_Anatomies.html

Reviewed by Amy Ione
The Diatrope Institute

ione@diatrope.com

One of the best-kept secrets in Washington DC is the National Academy of Sciences gallery space, where exhibitions that explore relationships among the arts and sciences, engineering, and medicine are regularly mounted. Given my enthusiasm for this venue, I was excited to learn a small catalogue accompanied their recent exhibition Visionary Anatomies. Excellent, and yet concise, this 40-page overview is a treasure. It includes full color reproductions of each artist (or collaborative team), brief statements about the printed works, and introductory essays that place current fashions within the history of art and anatomy. As a whole, the book brings to mind several recent exhibitions (Dream Anatomy at the National Library of Medicine, 2002’, The Hayward Gallery, London’s Spectacular Bodies, 2000-2001: and Revealing Bodies at the San Francisco Exploratorium, 2000). These exhibitions similarly highlighted how artists have translated the collective advancements in medicine, anatomy and technology into their own projects.

Indeed, J. D. Talesek acknowledges that "Visionary Anatomies" is a part of the dialogue begun in these earlier venues. Talesek also reminds us the dialogue between artists and scientists has an extended history. Some of the details of this history are outlined in Michael Sappol’s contribution: "Visionary Anatomies and the Great Divide: Art, Science and the Changing Conventions of Anatomical Representation 1500-2003." Sappol, a Curator-Historian with the National Library of Medicine, introduces a series of long-standing issues in the history of anatomical representation that include the conventions that govern collaborations among artists and anatomists. He speaks of both the boundaries and dialogue between them. Beginning with the assertion that we think of ourselves as anatomical beings, Sappol then moves to how the subject of anatomical representation, like the placement of "boundaries" between art and science, is not purely academic. It also has reference to our own experience. What I liked most about this short essays was the chronology it provided. Also of great interest were the engravings included to illustrate the text. For example, although I am acquainted with the history from Galen through Vesalius, the Scottish anatomist John Bell, and contemporary imaging technologies, I had never clearly delineated how the uses of anatomical representations shifted as artistic/scientific conventions, meanings, and audiences altered their perspective on the world. Whereas Vesalius’ bodies are often placed in a scene, and other illustrations cited (or parodied) iconic traditions and subjects, by the eighteenth century conventions had changed. The essay further explains that by the end of this century Bell truculently denounced "the vitious practice of drawing from the imagination, " instead of "truly from the anatomical table."

The plates of the artwork convinced me that this is an excellent exhibition, while reminding me of how much is lost when we look at reproductions rather than the works themselves. Some of the art worked better in the small format than others. I loved the sinewy quality and the way the light/dark contrast accentuated it in Mike and Doug Starn’s Blot out the Sun #1, which used a combination of techniques found in both the history of photographic processes as well as tools of today’s digital age. Katherine du Tiel’s Inside/outside series also effectively translated despite the small format. Images reproduced include a Spine/Back and Muscle/Hand that were printed so that it is difficult to separate the within from the without. Each confuses the lines between anatomy and physical reality, and combines an elegant aesthetic with a subdued whimsy.

The limitations of seeing art through a publication were more obvious in Stefanie Bürkle’s Panorama Paris Lambda print. It was immediately evident that her work follows in the epic style that has become associated with contemporary German photographers (e.g., Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Hofer). This piece contrasts the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris with a terminal in Charles de Gaulle airport. Bürkle places an anatomical model of a man standing on his head in the museum room, which is stacked full of encased creatures, objects of natural history. Visually the juxtaposition is intended to prompt a comparison between cultural and social values in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. Impressive as I assume it is in the physical space, the contrast was primarily in my mind when pondering it in the catalogue. The reduction of a 31.5x78 inch piece to a two page spread that measured 13" across mitigated its power. Similarly, Richard Yorde’s piece looked impressive, but it was too large to read in the small size provided.

I was particularly grateful that contributors included statements about each work. As someone who enjoys knowing the process and how the artist "sees" the project, I found this information helped round out the book as well as my understanding of what I was actually looking at when viewing the flat reproductions. For example, (art)ⁿ’s contribution Pet Study 2 (Lung Cancer): Man Ray/Picabia Imitating Balzac is a virtual sculpture modeled on a photograph of the painter Francis Picabia taken by Man Ray. I would not have conceptualized the image at all without the statement that explained that when it is viewed through a backlit barrier screen the assembled images are perceived by the viewer to exist in three dimensions. The statement also explains that similarity exists between the way that (art) builds up the multiple layers of the virtual sculpture and the way that contemporary medical scanning technologies deconstruct the body in a series of planes.

In closing, the "Visionary Anatomies" catalogue is a splendid overview of contemporary work that references the body. It is available in its entirety at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/arts/Visionary_Anatomies.html. I highly recommend it, with the footnote that those who can visit the show will no doubt find the actual works offer more when seen full size in the physical world. Although no longer showing at the NAS, the show will be on display at the Monmouth Museum in Lincroft, New Jersey from September 17––November 27, 2005.