Exhibition

School of Visual Arts presents “Where Is the Art in Bio Art?”—an exhibition of biologically-infused art that makes use of a variety of materials and media including bacteria, time-lapse video, microscopic imagery and more. The exhibition will be on view September 27 through October 18 at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, New York City.

Created by BFA Fine Arts students, alumni and faculty, these works were generated in the state-of-the-art SVA Bio Art Lab, the first facility of its kind in the United States. The exhibition is curated by Suzanne Anker, chair of BFA Fine Arts and an internationally recognized Bio Art pioneer.

Artists and works include:

Suzanne Anker: rapid prototype sculpture;

Yacov Avrahami: digital prints of fluorescent bacteria painting;

Brandon Ballengée: preserved specimens;

Shane Boddington: instiillation of orange-pigmented food cultured with acetobacter;

Vincent Chen: mixed media sculpture;

Anne Clinton: vinyl prints;

Thibaut Dapigny: rapid prototype with displacement image mapping;

Erin Davis: video;

Lina Espinosa: digital prints of fluorescent bacteria painting;

Daniella Garcia-Rosales: aquarium pump, black light, tonic water, kaleidoscopes, twine, glassware, projection;

Zachary La Rosa: moss, tree branch, fish tank, growlight;

Yi Yao Li: video of dancing ants;

Lian Lian: laser cut plexi glass;

Laura Murray: mixed media sculpture;

Alessia Resta: terrarium

Tarah Rhoda: mixed media sculpture;

Henry G. Sanchez: soil from Newton Creek, vitrine;

Richard Walshe: digital prints of fluorescent bacteria painting;

Darya Warner: mushroom in real-time growth.

“Bio Art summons awareness of the political, economic and social consequences of altering life,” explains Anker. “It is supported in myriad formats, from painting and sculpture to performance art and new media installations. Artists employ biological processes such as cloning, tissue engineering and plant breeding, and incorporate plants, animals, microorganisms, sensors and soil, among other materials, into their work.”

The Bio Art Lab was founded in 2011 as part of the BFA Fine Arts Department at SVA as a place where scientific tools and techniques become tools and techniques in art practice. Housing skeleton collections, specimen collections, slide collections, microscopes for photo and video, an herbarium, an aquarium and a library, the Lab is located in the heart of New York City’s Chelsea gallery district at 335 West 16th Street.