For Immediate Release
Berkeley
Museum Presents World's First Exhibit Of Extraterrestrial Abstract Artwork
JULY 15, 2006 - Concluding centuries of speculation about
extraterrestrial intelligence, conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has discovered
that a radio signal detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico contains
artwork broadcast from deep space. Initially dismissed by researchers as
meaningless, the transmission -- which originated between the constellations
Aries and Pisces thousands of years ago -- is now claimed to be the most
significant addition to the artistic canon since the Mona Lisa, or even the
Venus of Willendorf.
Painstakingly decoded and transferred onto
canvas by Mr. Keats, the artwork will be unveiled to the public at the Judah L.
Magnes Museum in Berkeley on July 30, 2006. "This is the ultimate outsider
art," notes Mr. Keats. "Historically our culture has ignored
extraterrestrial artistic expression. Exhibited at the Magnes, the art becomes
accessible to everyone."
The discovery of artwork from beyond the solar
system did not come as a surprise to Mr. Keats, who has frequently collaborated
with scientists across multiple disciplines. "It's a familiar story,"
he says. "Researchers expect intelligent life elsewhere in the universe to
behave just like them. Since scientists are mathematical, they expect
extraterrestrials to broadcast the digits of pi or the Pythagorean
theorem."
Mr. Keats began seriously to question the wisdom
of these assumptions while conducting independent research early last year.
"If I were an extraterrestrial trying to communicate with beings elsewhere
in the universe, I certainly wouldn't transmit something they already
knew," he argues. "I'd try to express something about myself, as
profound as possible, in the most universal language I could imagine: I'd send
art."
The participation of the Magnes was crucial, according to Mr.
Keats. "While it would be presumptuous to make claims about the religious
background of beings elsewhere in the universe, I doubt that I'd have been able
to appreciate extraterrestrial artwork had I not been brought up Jewish,"
he says. "Growing up in a Diaspora culture has naturally sensitized me to
work unacknowledged by, and even laughable to, the mainstream. Approaching art
from a Jewish perspective, chief curator Alla Efimova and the entire Magnes
staff were completely open to the work I presented."
The Magnes staff was also open to Mr. Keats’s
suggestion that the generous loan of extraterrestrial art be reciprocated, and
have provided facilities for him to transmit his own abstractions -- inspired
by works in the museum collection -- out into deep space. This unprecedented interstellar
cultural exchange will be ongoing for the six-month run of the exhibition.
While the reaction of art connoisseurs elsewhere
in the cosmos is not known at this time, preliminary response on this planet is
strong. "Jonathon Keats’s art
is a persistent, absurdist sabotage of modern rationality and its
institutions," says Dr. Efimova. “He usurps the habitual processes and
mechanisms of science, law, politics, economics, and religion. Out of these
mechanisms he creates ongoing and boundless performances that have no beginning
or end."