Text and Texture, Books of Nature, Andrew S. Yang

One facet of Yang’s artistic practice is juxtaposing cultural and natural objects. The idea of “natureculture” synthesizes these two categories by acknowledging that their relationships are intertwined on every level. Visual play and representation in this installation create many poetic moments. The idea that we might read the Earth like an open book, for example, comes to life in new ways among fossilized bark that resembles Sumerian cuneiform tablets (one of the earliest known writing systems) and a geological sedimentary rock that opens like a book to reveal a fossil. Thank you to the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and the Kenneth Spencer Research Library for joining the Spencer Museum of Art in supporting this work with collections from across the University.