Desde la izquierda, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Rodrigo Echenique, Richard Bueno, Maria Blasco, María José Magaña y Borja Baselga. / dariobol.co
Works by five internationally renowned Spanish artists, created as a result of their interaction with leading scientists in their areas of research, can be seen from today at the Cervantes Institute in New York in the group exhibition CNIO Arte. Dialogues between art and science. The exhibition aims to “strengthen the dialogue between the sciences and the arts,” explains the catalog.
Artists Eva Lootz, Chema Madoz, Carmen Calvo, Daniel Canogar and Susana Solano have collaborated with scientists Margarita Salas, Ignacio Cirac, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Sarah Teichmann and Pedro Alonso, respectively, in the framework of CNIO Arte, the pioneering initiative that promotes the relationship between art and science launched in 2018 by the CNIO with the support of the Banco Santander Foundation.
The group exhibition CNIO Arte. Dialogues between art and science shows a selection of works from the CNIO Arte program, made up of several photographs and videos, 59 drawings and 4 collages.
The opening event was attended by representatives of the Fundación Banco Santander Rodrigo Echenique and Borja Baselga, and of the Instituto Cervantes Richard Bueno and María José Magaña, as well as by CNIO scientific director Maria Blasco and paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga. Artists Carmen Calvo and Amparo Garrido, who has curated all CNIO Arte editions of so far, participated via videoconference.
Five editions of art inspired by science
The first edition of CNIO Arte (2018) featured visual artist Eva Lootz and molecular biologist Margarita Salas, who passed away in 2019. Lootz reflects on genetic manipulation and the origins of molecular biology.
The second edition (2019) brought together photographer Chema Madoz, an internationally renowned conceptual artist, and quantum physicist Ignacio Cirac, director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching (Germany). Inspired by quantum physics, Madoz plays in his work with the role of chance in who we are.
Carmen Calvo and Juan Luis Arsuaga collaborated in 2020. Calvo fractures memories, like perhaps those in the skulls of the Atapuerca sites, in the mountains of Burgos.
The fourth edition, in 2021, brought together the artist Daniel Canogar, author of works of great visual and technological impact, and the computational biologist Sarah Teichmann, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK), co-founder of the international project Human Cell Atlas. Canogar’s work deals with the big data of life.
Sculptor Susana Solano and epidemiologist Pedro Alonso participated in the 2022 edition. Solano’s work encourages reflection on the relationship (or non-relationship) between Europe and Africa.