44 | NewScientist | 8 September 2018Surreal Science: Loudon Collection
with Salvatore Arancio, Whitechapel
Gallery, London, to 6 January 2019WHENEVER the artist Salvatore
Arancio visits a new city, he heads
for the nearest natural history
museum. He goes partly for
research: his eclectic output,
spanning photography and
ceramics, explores how we
categorise and try to understand
natural and geological processes.
In the main, though, Arancio
wants to be overwhelmed. “A lot
of these collections are so vast,
after a while you find yourself
wandering around in a spaced-out
state, inventing mental landscapes
and narratives. It’s that feeling I’m
trying to evoke here,” he tells me
as we watch the assembly of his
new show, Surreal Science, a
collaboration with art patron
George Loudon.
Loudon famously collected
work by Damien Hirst and his
generation years before they
became global celebrities – until
the day a canvas he bought
wouldn’t fit through his door.
At that point, Loudon turned
to the books, images and models
(in clay, felt, glass and plaster) that
educated 19th-century science
students. “Looking back, I can
see the move was a natural one,”
Loudon says. “Artists like Hirst
and Mark Dion were exploring the
way we catalogue and represent
the world. Around the time that
collection felt complete I was
travelling to South America a lot,
and I became interested in the
scientific discoveries made there –
by Charles Darwin, Alexander von
Humboldt, Alfred Russel Wallace
and Henry Walter Bates.”
This isn’t a collection in the
sense that there is any demarcationto it. “It’s somebody’s personal
eye that chooses this over that,”
says Loudon. Nevertheless, a
clear theme has emerged: how
the explosion of science in the
19th century meant that scientists
had to turn artist to produce
educational materials for students.
And, when the burden became too
much, how companies of artisans
emerged to satisfy the demand.
Loudon’s collection has been
shown before, at the Manchester
Museum last year, but Surreal
Science is a different enterprise.
The objects, designed to be
handled, are exhibited here on
open shelves, bringing the visitor
tantalisingly close to the work in
a very un-museumlike manner.
Needless to say this makes for a
nerve-racking build.
This is the moment of truthfor Arancio, who had to plan
this installation-cum-exhibition
armed only with photographs of
Loudon’s collection and sheets of
careful measurements. It is the
first chance he has had to see his
arrangements realised in situ.
The ceramic pieces he has
created provide a foil for theitems in Loudon’s collection. An
arrangement of ceramic flowers
above an anatomical cut-away
torso suggests a mandrake-like
marriage of vegetable and human.
Next to it is a discomforting
juxtaposition of plaster models
of teeth and wax copies of lemons.
Models of cell division are easilymistaken for geodes. Again and
again, Arancio’s ceramic pieces –
pools, leaves, corals and tubular
spider forms – mislead the eye,
so we miscatalogue what we see.
“I tried to create pieces that
carried George’s objects off into
some kind of fantastic realm,” says
Arancio. Even before key elements
of the show are installed –proper
lighting, a looping educational
film from 1935 and an
experimental soundtrack by The
Focus Group – it is clear that the
experiment has succeeded.
For Loudon, it is a vindication of
his decision to collect objects that
until recently weren’t recognised
by the fine-art market. He moves
from shelf to shelf, past exquisite
Blaschka glass slugs, felt fungi,
a meticulously repaired elephant
bird egg. “Now these objects have
lost their original purpose, we can
look at them as objects of beauty,”
he says. “I’m not claiming that
this is art forever. I am saying it
is art for today.” ■George Loudon’s collection is explored in
his book Object Lessons (Ridinghouse)CULTURE
A fantastical experiment
Ceramic art acts as a cunning foil for a collection of scientific curios, finds Simon Ings
Loudon’s collection includes wax
lemons and an anatomical torso“ The explosion of science
meant scientists turned
artist to produce materials
for their students”PLASTER ANATOMICAL DEMONSTRATION MODEL TORSO 19TH CENTURY 72X37X26CM FRANCE OR GERMANY IMAGE COURTESY GEORGE LOUDON
COLLECTION, PHOTOGRAPH BY ROSAMOND PURCELLTOP: FR ANCESCO GARNIER VALLETTI TWO BOXES OF WAX FRUITS (LEMONS AND PEACHES 19TH CENTURYTURINIMAGE COURTESY
GEORGE LOUDON COLLECTION, PHOTOGRAPH BY ROSAMOND PURCELL