Competing Cosmologies: Interpreting the Sky

The exhibition, co-curated by the Wende’s Curatorial Department and NASA historian Lois Rosson, explores the ways in which new discoveries in space exploration during and after the Cold War have inspired visual artists on a global scale. In four sections about Astronomy; the Space Race; Futurisms; and Aliens, the exhibition shows how artists in the East, the West, and the Global South have responded to advanced space-related scientific and technological developments and discoveries, and how they connected these new insights with specific cultural tropes.

Competing Cosmologies combines historical artifacts, including a full-scale model of Sputnik-1, an original meteorite, and cosmos-themed sculptures, with contemporary and Cold War-era artwork inspired by and reflecting on the cosmos.

Artists presented in the exhibition include Pyotr Belenok, Nuotama Bodomo, Chesley Bonestell, Beatriz Cortez, David van Eyssen, Bettina Forget, Chitra Ganesh, Mark Steven Greenfield, Lia Halloran, Jitish Kallat, Paul Laffoley, Alexei Leonov, Aaron Samuel Mulenga, Truon Minh Quy, Sun Ra, Leo Raudys, Ionel Talpazan, Fedir Tetyanych, and Li Tianbing.