Pasadena’s Total Eclipse of Science and Art

Eclipse exhibition (Photo – williamsongallery.net).

The total eclipse of the sun, scheduled across North America in August, is the inspiration for an exhibition at the Williamson Gallery at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design.

By Garrett Rowlan

Organized by Stephen Nowlin, Director and Curator of the gallery, the show will use a variety of approaches as part of the gallery’s ongoing concern with the nexus of art and science.

As such, the upcoming eclipse, which will occur August 21, provides a readymade theme, expressed in a variety of visual approaches. In one gallery, the opening scene of Bella Tarr’s 2000 film Werckmeister Harmonies (in which a man tries to explain the celestial alignment that produces an eclipse by pushing and pulling the denizens of a bar late at night) will be played while, on the gallery’s other three walls, representations of the earth, sun, and moon will move in and out of shadows. Tarr’s seamless, long-take approach to cinema will form a continuum with the planetary bodies.

In another gallery, Lita Albuquerque, whose spherical representation of celestial alignments was previously included in the Williamson’s Observe show of 2008, will return with another physical representation of what it feels like to travel in our galaxy, in particular the three bodies that will create an eclipse.

Other exhibits include artifacts from the Huntington Library and visualizations of previous eclipses in composite photographs, etchings, paintings, and digital projections. Also included will be two responses to the eclipse over London in 1652, one from an astrologer and the other from a Christian preacher, both of whom see the event from their own perspective of causes and effects. The event of 1652 was an occasion of speculation over divine judgement regarding current events of that time, and one cannot help but think of the current political and cultural situation currently in the United States.

Black Sun with Falling Corona, 2016. Unique gelatin silver print by Jacqueline Woods.

> The exhibition will run from June 30 through September 10. Opening reception is open to the public and will include the following participants:

Art

• Lita Albuquerque
• Howard Russell Butler
• Russell Crotty
• Stephen Dankner
• Rosemarie Fiore
• Étienne Léopold Trouvelot
• Jacqueline Woods

Science

• The Caltech Archives
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Carnegie Observatories
• Lick Observatory
• The Huntington Library
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• The Museum of Jurassic Technology

Eclipse Exhibition Opening Night

Date/Time
06/29/2017
6:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Location
ArtCenter Hillside Campus Williamson Gallery

Garrett Rowlan has been writing all of his life. In addition to being a writer, Garrett is a big supporter of social justice issues. His first novel will be published next year.