The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.

“The beauty of material thinking that can be found in the visual detritus of scientific investigation.”

Focusing primarily on the work of Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010), one of the most notable mathematicians of the twentieth century, this exhibition explores the role of images in scientific thinking. With their capacity to generate and shape knowledge, images are at the very core of scientific investigation: charts, graphs, notebooks, instrument readings, technological representations, even mental abstractions—all make up the essential stuff of which it is made.

This exhibition and its accompanying publication should raise questions about the merits of the idea that the illustration of a work must always be secondary to the work itself. On the contrary: Substantive images often play generative roles in the scientific process, constituting a kind of material thinking conducted by producing and interpreting visual traces, such as computer-generated images. These images are often aesthetically compelling even if they are initially scientifically impenetrable. This constitutes another revelation of the exhibition: the beauty of material thinking that can be found in the visual detritus of scientific investigation.

A Focus Project curated by Visiting Assistant Professor Nina Samuel. Focus Projects are small-scale academically rigorous exhibitions and publications that are developed and executed by Bard Graduate Center faculty and postdoctoral fellows in collaboration with students in our MA and PhD programs.

Exhibition Preview:

From September 21, 2012 to January 27, 2013, the BGC presents The Islands of Benoît Mandelbrot: Fractals, Chaos, and the Materiality of Thinking in the Focus Gallery. Curated by Visiting Assistant Professor Nina Samuel and students, the exhibition focuses primarily on the work of Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010), one of the most notable mathematicians of the twentieth century, and the role of images in scientific thinking.

Benôit Mandelbrot. The Islands of Dr. Mandelbrot, ca. 1970. Hirsh Lewistan and Mark R. Laff, programmers. Collection of Aliette Mandelbrot and Mark R. Laff.

Florian Grond. Skizzen bewegender Gleichungen (Sketches of Moving Equations), 2012. The artist would like to thank Alexis Emelianoff for support during the production of this work.

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“The beauty of material thinking that can be found in the visual detritus of scientific investigation.”

Exhibition Preview:

Benôit Mandelbrot. The Islands of Dr. Mandelbrot, ca. 1970. Hirsh Lewistan and Mark R. Laff, programmers. Collection of Aliette Mandelbrot and Mark R. Laff.

Florian Grond. Skizzen bewegender Gleichungen (Sketches of Moving Equations), 2012. The artist would like to thank Alexis Emelianoff for support during the production of this work.