Please join us for the opening reception of BUGS ABOUT / DIAGONAL SCIENCE a series of new sculptures displayed on the museum grounds exquisitely made by Langdon Graves. Graves is a Virginia-born, New York-based artist who received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and her MFA from Parsons School of Design in 2007. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, Arkansas and Massachusetts. Her work has been featured in Art News, VICE, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, Art F City and Blouin Artinfo. Langdon is represented by Victori + Mo Gallery in New York City.
Insects often show up in my work as tiny symbols of mortality, transformation, and the inevitable processes of decay and renewal, in the tradition of Vanitas and Memento Mori painting. I recently came across the term Diagonal Science, coined by the writer/philosopher/sociologist and friend to the surrealists and magical realists, Roger Caillois, who wrote about insect behavior as an analogy to human activities and endeavors. Diagonal Science was his study of how myths develop, which he theorized as an interdisciplinary product of anthropology, biology, religion and geography. I take a lot from mythology, spirituality and many of the pseudo-sciences for my work, and I think of Caillois' term Diagonal Science as a kind of pre-cursor to theories and practices we’ve written off as science-like, but not in keeping with the scientific method.
- - Langdon Graves
The opening reception is from 3pm-6pm. BUGS ABOUT / DIAGONAL SCIENCE runs from June 8 - September 8.