The Glass Veil ─ Seven Adventures in Wonderland

In this collaborative work between artist and theorist Suzanne Anker and art historian Sabine Flach, the study of image production unveils the reality of pictures beyond their function as mere representations of the world. The visuals range from firsthand accounts of specimen collections in historical medical museums, to scientific research laboratories, to studies of plant propagation, among other themes concerning life forms and Bio Art. Focusing on systems of artistic knowledge, the authors demonstrate how context, scale and framing devices alter meaning in pictorial systems. Somatic responses, classification networks and image banks are explored as they relate to intersections in visual art and the biological sciences.

Suzanne Anker is a visual artist and theorist working at the nexus of art and the biological sciences. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries including the Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Institute, the Phillips Collection, MoMA PS1, the JP Getty Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in Japan. Her seminal text The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (co-authored with the late Dorothy Nelkin) was published in 2004. She is the Chair of the Fine Arts Department of School of Visual Arts in New York since 2005.
Sabine Flach holds a PD and a PhD in art history. She is currently Chair of the Institute for Art History at the University of Graz, Austria, where she is currently Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art. Her current research focuses on Epistemology and Methodology of Contemporary Art; Praxis and Theory of Contemporary Art; Aisthesis and Media of Embodiment; Epistemology and Aesthetics of Visual Thinking; Emotions and Culture of the Senses; Knowledge of the Arts; Art and Art Theories of the 19th and 20th Centuries.