LINKING WORKS OF ART WITH AN ELEMENT FROM THE PERIODIC TABLE

Matthew Barney, Bayhorse, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield is hosting Prima Materia: The Periodic Table in Contemporary Art, a group exhibition presenting significant and diverse works of art, which incorporate or reference 35 of the 118 elements on the periodic table by artists Matthew Barney, Edward Burtynsky, Rachel Berwick, Dove Bradshaw, Julian Charrière, Compound Interest, The Dufala Brothers, Ashley Epps, Philp Grausman, Tom Lehrer, Bryan McGovern Wilson, Jeffrey Meris, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Cornelia Parker, Katie Paterson, Simon Patterson, Beverly Pepper, Winston Roeth, Peter Selgin, Sunny A. Smith, Edward Steed, Carlos Vega, Eleanor White, and Robert Williams. The exhibit will be on view at the museum from Feb. 5 to Aug. 27.

While the basis of the exhibition is science, through expansive curatorial choices, the project will reveal the material basis for sociological, emotional, political and even spiritual subject matter. Artists use specific materials for a reason, quite often for their metaphorical potential and Prima Materia will explore hard facts as well as alchemical conjecture.