art and science – Art Spiel

September 15, 2026September 13, 2026, by Agnese Fanizza

Serena Scapagnini: Painting Memory

Serena Scapagnini, Saliency, La Memoria Cangiante

Memory is a fickle thing. However, when viewed through a neuroscientific lens, memory is also a biological process. Serena Scapagnini’s artistic practice, her recent Saliency, La Memoria Cangiante (2026) in particular, explores the retrieval of memory in its interdisciplinary entirety. Inaugurated on June 4th as a permanent installation at the Wu Tsai Institute at Yale University, Saliency, La Memoria Cangiante opens a wider reflection on the position of memory, whether as process or personal attachment, in Scapagnini’s work and current projects.

August 10, 2026August 9, 2026, by Michal Gavish

Le Alchemiste by Anselm Kiefer at the Palazzo Reale

I saw “Le Alchemiste” by Anselm Kiefer at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, and although I have seen many exhibitions by this German artist, I have never seen anything like this. He creates large vertical portraits of about forty women who worked as alchemists and healers in various European communities in the period between antiquity and the nineteenth century.

May 5, 2026May 4, 2026, by Claire Haik

Philadelphia Artist Studio Visits: Deirdre Murphy 2026

I met Dierdre Murphy for our studio visit at Rolling Hill Park on one of the first true days of spring. She strode up the forested lane with a bright smile, and I followed her to a yellow cottage nestled among the trees and many meandering hiking trails. Bathed in the sound of tweeting of birds, Murphy explained her long history of working with the Lower Merion Conservancy both as a volunteer and as their Climate Artist-in-Residence. There, she has created several site-specific works, including a spectacular mural translating bird migration data into bright organic shapes.

April 15, 2026April 16, 2026, by Adria Arch

Yuko Oda – Decaying into Bloom

Installation view of Decaying into Bloom

Yuko Oda’s recent exhibit, Decaying into Bloom, currently on view at the Brodigan Gallery at the Groton School, located west of Boston, seduces with beauty and delivers a gut-punch from the moment you enter. It is the best kind of artistic experience: being pulled in by the sensuality of the materials, then hit hard with the poignancy of the message. Living things have always had to adapt to new conditions, and Oda imagines for us some ingenious possibilities.

March 31, 2026April 2, 2026, by Hantian Zhang

The 15th Shanghai Biennale: Does the Flower Hear the Bees?

Botany, I read in Zoë Schlanger’s bestseller The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, is full of groundbreaking discoveries these days (Schlanger 2024). We now know that plants have cellular conduits that allow propagation of electrical charges, that some plants release chemicals in the air to alert neighbors of insects, and that evening primrose increases its nectar’s sweetness when it senses the frequency of the hum of bee wings. While such plant-feeling, plant-talking, and plant-listening are not sustained by the same biological apparatus as ours, the functional parallel is apparent. Perhaps it is time to broaden our understanding of intelligence.

February 11, 2026February 10, 2026, by Michal Gavish

John Kelly: A FRIEND GAVE ME A BOOK at PPOW

I walked into the PPOW gallery the morning my friend Riki died. The 182-panel illustrated small drawings by New York artist John Kelly, which extend as an open graphic memoir around the gallery, captured me instantly, letting me in on a personal journey of mortality, pain, and beauty. There was something generous in the way Kelly handed his notebook and shared the manuscript of his injury. It resonated with my thoughts of investigating and dwelling on mourning and mortality.

August 17, 2018November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Christine Romanell – Everything is Connected

Christine Romanell’s fascination with science and math is evident in her artwork. Her installations typically involve kinetic elements, light, and at times she is also collaborating with scientists, engineers, or other artists. Romanell shares with Art Spiel the impetus for her work, process, and exhibitions, including her current exhibition at “Everything Is Connected” at 1978 Maplewood Arts Center in NJ, a culmination of a year of work investigating rotational symmetry.

Christine Soccio Romanell, Cubed, 2018, 25 x 25 x 60 inches, Laser cut colored acrylic, courtesy of the artist

Continue reading “Christine Romanell – Everything is Connected”

April 13, 2018November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Michal Gavish – Crystalline City at LIU

Michal Gavish, NYC3, photo courtesy of the artist

Crystalline City is an exhibition of large-scale installations by Michal Gavish, on view now at the Humanities Gallery at LIU, Brooklyn. Presented in this unique glass walled gallery akin to a large scale oval diorama, the viewer can see the works from the outside. Designed on a combination of translucent fabrics and papers, the hand made prints transmit and reflect the surrounding lights and allow for multiple full views of the installation, through and around these fabrics. Continue reading “Michal Gavish – Crystalline City at LIU”