Does DNA Define You? exhibition brochure August 22 - October 31, 2008

Mining Identity: Works by Eve-Marie Bergren August 29 – November 7, 2008 The Center, Hailey Boise-based artist Eve-Marie Bergren has produced a series of portraits of individuals based on their fingerprints. The paintings’ swirling lines create lyrical abstract patterns at the same time that they signify our uniqueness as individual human beings. The Center, Hailey, will feature an installation of a large selection of these portraits.

Exhibition Celebration The Center, Hailey Fri, Sep 12, 5:30–7pm Join us for drinks and appetizers. Eve-Marie Bergren will be present to discuss her work.

Eve-Marie Bergren, Mining Identity: Finola, 2005, courtesy of the artist

Does DNA Define You? August 22 – October 31, 2008 Sun Valley Center for the Arts How much does who our parents are determine who we become? Does our DNA contain clues not only to our hair color but also to our personality? To the kinds of preferences, desires and goals that will guide us through life? The last half-century has seen an explosion in our knowledge of DNA, from its discovery in the 1950s to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. The more information we gain about genetics, the more questions we seem to have about the connection between our biology and our identity. Terms that once seemed the stuff of science fiction, like “designer babies” and “genetic engineering,” have become part of our everyday language and have triggered a series of new ethical dilemmas regarding the degree to which we should be reconfiguring the fundamental building blocks Eugenics Tree, ca. 1925, Eugenics Record Office Records, American Philosophical Society

of life. This multidisciplinary project explores these questions through lectures, films, art exhibitions and classes.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U S POSTAGE

Sun Valley Center for the Arts P O Box 656 Sun Valley, ID 83353

Does

D N A

Define You?

PAID BOISE ID PERMIT NO. 679

Visual Arts Does DNA Define You? presents artwork from the 18th century to the present that illustrates the historic shifts in the way artists have conceptualized the relationship between identity and biology.

In the 18th century, Mexican artists produced an entirely new genre of artwork, known as casta [caste] painting. Made in series, these paintings showed the results of racial intermixing in the Americas, with each painting depicting a basic biological family unit (a man, a woman and a child) of different racial backgrounds. Casta paintings conveyed racial and social theories of the time. The exhibition features reproductions of original casta paintings.

Early 20th-century artists depicted a later phase in racial and biological theory in illustrations that popularized the ideas behind eugenics, which promised the improvement of the human race through selective reproduction

Rebecca Howland, Same Apartment, Different Tenant, 1999-2000, courtesy of the artist

or "the self direction of human evolution."

The exhibition includes a selection of these illustrations as well as photographs from the “Fitter Families” contests held in the 1920s and 1930s.

The relationship between identity and biology has been a source of creativity for contemporary artists as well.

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle's The Garden of Delights series consists of portraits of individuals based on their DNA charts and poses the question of whether our DNA is who we are.

Similarly, Dennis Ashbaugh has created a series of DNA portraits based on individual genetic fingerprints. Unlike Manglano-Ovalle, who produces prints of actual DNA charts, Ashbaugh uses digital images of DNA as the basis for large-scale oil paintings and prints that engage the history of abstract and color-field painting.

Artist Rebecca Howland has created a series of drawings that gently and humorously probe the complicated issues of genomics, cloning and reproductive biotechnology.

Howland injects personal, spiritual and ethical questions into the scientific world of genetics.

Jaq Chartier’s luminescent paintings result from the chemical reactions between the layers of spray paint and acrylic that she applies to each canvas. Her process—a metaphor

Dennis Ashbaugh, Untitled (Gray) from the Genetic Portraits series, 1992, courtesy of the artist and Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, New Hampshire

for genetic testing—produces a result similar to that of DNA gel electrophoresis, in which

an electric current is passed through gel to

Exhibition Tours, every Tue at 2pm

separate DNA strands. The handwritten notes

It’s the First Place to Be!

she leaves visible in the margins are evidence

Fri, Aug 29 and Fri, Oct 10, 5:30–6:30pm

of the scientific approach she takes to art and

Join us for wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Special Evening Gallery Tour

the blurring of art and science in her work.

Open for Gallery Walk until 8pm

Thu, Sep 4, 5:30pm

Family Day

Tue, Oct 7 and 14, 6pm

Born into Brothels with Director and Producer Ross Kauffman

The Center, Ketchum

Wed, Sep 10, 7pm

Free

Free

Sun Valley Opera House

Come with your kids to explore infinite

This groundbreaking PBS documentary, hosted

$10 members/$15 nonmembers

combinations. Genetically engineer your own

by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., profiles some of

Winner of the 2005 Academy Award for Best

hybrid sculpture.

the most accomplished African Americans of

Documentary, Born into Brothels introduces us

our time using genealogy and DNA to trace

to the children of prostitutes in Calcutta. Zana

their roots down through American history and

Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives

back to Africa. This combination of science

each of the children a camera and teaches

and storytelling explores the quintessential

them to look at the world with new eyes. The

questions of heritage and the importance of

film traces their lives and their attempts to

knowing our past.

escape their world through photography, in

Lectures & Films African American Lives Documentary

the process bringing up questions how the children’s caste and heritage locks them into a way of life.

Director, producer and cinematographer Ross Kaufman will be on hand to talk about the making of the film, update what has happened to the children and answer questions. Born into Brothels has received over 40 awards, including the National Board of Review Best Documentary 2004 and the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award.

Sun, Oct 5, 3–5pm The Center, Hailey

Ketchum: M-F 9am-5pm, Sat in Aug 11am-5pm Exhibition Tours: Tue at 2pm 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho Hailey: W-F noon-5pm 314 Second Ave. S, Hailey, Idaho Sun Valley Center for the Arts P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353 208.726.9491 www.sunvalleycenter.org Printed on recycled paper, 50/25% post consumer waste.

$15 members/$20 nonmembers

Lecture: Casta Painting: Race, Class and Sex in 18th-century Mexico

by Courtney Gilbert

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher

Tue, Oct 2, 7pm

University Professor at Harvard University,

The Center, Ketchum

as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois

Free

Institute for African and African American

Depicting the results of racial mixing

Research. Professor Gates is a widely published

in the Americas, 18th-century casta

author and editor of such publications as

paintings presented a man and a

The Encyclopedia of the African and African

woman of different racial groups

American Experience and Wonders of the

with their offspring, who were

African World. He has received nearly 50

assigned a third racial category. The

honorary degrees, as well as a MacArthur

racial labels used in the paintings

Foundation fellowship and inclusion in Time

paralleled a complex caste system

magazine’s list of the “25 Most Influential

that the Spanish Empire tried to

Americans.”

implement to maintain control over

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Thu, Oct 16, 7pm nexStage Theatre, Ketchum

The Center’s 2008/2009 Lecture Series is

its colonies. This slide lecture will

made possible, in part, through the generosity

explore the intersection of race,

of Richard and Judith Smooke.

class and sexual mores within these

mailer: Buenaventura José Guiol, De español e india nace mestiza, ca. 1770-80, private collection, courtesy of the National Hispanic Cultural Center; Jaq Chartier, Color Chart (May), 2008, courtesy of Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland; Buenaventura José Guiol, De español y castiza nace española, ca. 1770-80, private collection, courtesy of the National Hispanic Cultural Center; cover: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Carter, Anna, and Daryl from The Garden of Delights, 1998, courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York

canvases. Courtney Gilbert, The Center’s Curator of Visual Arts, earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where she studied modern European and Latin American Art History.

Miguel Cabrera, De español y torna atrás, tente en el aire, 1763, private collection, courtesy of the National Hispanic Cultural Center