What is the path of creativity in the 21st century?

 

Rites of Passage, an exhibition at 41 Cooper Gallery, located in Cooper Union's new academic building, explores the routes taken by recent alumni of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (opening 1/21 to 2/11). Many of the 37 works, which are teeming with imagination and invention, were created expressly for the exhibition and include first time collaborations between artists and engineers. The full spectrum of contemporary practices are represented in Rites of Passage: 1995-2009, including sound, text, architectural intervention, performance, video, photography, drawing, painting and sculpture. Avenues of expression range from the intangibility of light and sound to the poetry of infrastructure. The work of composer/scientist Salman Bakht (Albert Nerken School of Engineering), architect David A. Ross (Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture) and artists Josephine Halvorson, and Ryan and Trevor Oakes and Kim Holleman (The School of Art), to name a few, evoke a new romanticism and a return to sincerity and real emotion—which can blur the lines between the arts and sciences.