ART REVIEW; Long Island Shows: The Gilded Age to the Swirl of the Double Helix

Top of Form

By KEN JOHNSON

Published: July 25, 2003

Heckscher Museum

With heightened intuitions and the ability to translate abstract ideas into visual terms, artists are often expected to make sense out of science. In this vein genetics and DNA have been popular topics for group exhibitions in recent years. As it happens, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA 50 years ago, and so the Heckscher Museum is celebrating that anniversary with an expansive group exhibition organized by two guest curators, Lynn Gamwell and Elizabeth Merryman.

Though not without entertainment value, the show does not make a very good case for artists as interpreters of science. The unfocused grab bag of more or less symbolic images in many mediums includes Alexis Rockman's painting of a creepy, prehistoric lagoon; Tom Otterness's bronze cartoon sculpture of a DNA molecule; a field of cellular forms drawn by Alexander Ross; a long piece of knotted monofilament by Tom Friedman; a pattern painting repeating the image of a cobra by Phillip Taaffe; a photograph of hands with finger and palm prints emphasized by Gary Schneider; and much more work of far less aesthetic interest.

All works come with labels explaining precisely how they represent principles of DNA science.

Some artists, like Suzanne Anker, give the impression of knowing a great deal about genetics; others don't seem to know much more than what you'd glean from newspaper headlines. Either way, one feels that the often fanciful artistic element does more to get in the way of understanding the relevant issues -- scientific, sociological, mythological and otherwise -- than to illuminate them.

This is also true of the big, lavishly produced photographic montages by Kevin Clarke featured here in a solo show. Mr. Clarke makes portraits of people by layering sequences of alphabetic DNA symbols and images of objects associated with the subject.