Art and Science in LACMA’s Cosmologies Exhibition

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the Cosmologies exhibition that will be presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in late 2024 – early 2025. Created in collaboration with scientists at the Carnegie Observatories and the Griffith Observatory, and a global array of consulting scholars, Cosmologies presents a group of one hundred twenty rare artworks, stone, ceramic, and metal sculptures; paintings; works on paper; manuscripts; astronomical instruments; and computer visualizations. The exhibition’s goal is to explore the variety of human attempts to explain the universe’s origins, mechanics, and meaning. Cosmologies is an aesthetically and intellectually ambitious exhibition that explores the history of multiple cosmologies around the globe from the Neolithic period to the present day, as they have developed across a wide range of regions and cultures, including Indigenous North and South America, Mesoamerica, Neolithic Europe, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, South and Southeast Asia, East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan), the Islamic Middle East, Europe, and the United States, ending with an exploration of the current and future state of cosmology. The exhibition explores the development of cosmologies not only as scientific (i.e., astronomical and observable) systems of understanding, but also as ontological systems of belief that provided models for human beings’ place and purpose in the cosmos.