"Suzanne Anker," In Human Nature, art exhibition catalogue. Indiana University School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery. 2007.

Suzanne Anker has influenced how the relationship between genetic imagery and artistic aesthetic representation has been conceptualized in the contemporary world. Anker curated the first exhibition to explore the intersection between genetics and art, Gene Culture: Molecular Metaphor in Contemporary Art, at Fordham University in 1994. The exhibition investigated "the ways in which genetic imaging operates as aesthetic signs." Her book The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age examines the ethical dilemmas present in a society that has the ability to manipulate biological life, revealing the pervasiveness of genetic imagery in the popular consciousness. Her artworks reveal how both art and science rely on language systems to bring visual form to abstract ideas. In her words, "Science has always presented itself metaphorically," giving representational form to formerly abstract notions of what constitutes biological life.

Her installation Micronatural, 2006, contains seven individual works of sculpture, mixed media, screenprinting, and digital printing, which thematically work together to establish an analogy between scientific depictions of genetic materials and which depict the chromosome in a style reminiscent of calligraphy. The piece explores how scientific knowledge exposes the biological body as a set of small pieces of information, of a "cellular script," that seemingly records the story of biological existence. Cubist Baby situates human life during prenatal development within the language of Cubism. Anker explains that for the laboratory technician "as with the cubists, the sign becomes an abbreviated blueprint of cultural code summarizing the materialization of ideas into visual form."

By Jennifer Eberbach


Sources:

Suzanne Anker, "Gene Culture: Molecular Metaphor in Visual Art," Leonardo 33, no 5 (2000).

Suzanne Anker, "Picturing DNA: An Interview with Suzanne Anker."