4

Special thanks to Teri Hensick (Harvard Art Museum) for her support and generosity.

Funding also provided by The John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage
and
Brown Department of Modern Culture and Media.

SIGHT LINES was funded with major support from the Chandra X-ray Center/Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory.

Dr. Daniel Wang - The Center of The Milky Way (2000 - 2007)
Dr. Sangwook Park - Supernova Remnant G292.0+1.8 (2006)
Teri Hensick - Vincent van Gogh Three Pairs of Shoes ... (1997)

Curators

Dr. Daniel Wang - Galaxy Cluster Abell 2125 (2001)

Dr. Jacco Vink - Supernova Remnant RCW 86 (2002)
Teri Hensick - Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas Cotton Merchants in New Orleans ... (1999)

Originally designed for the Brown family

mansion by Frederick Law Olmsteads
Landscaping Firm in 1903, the John
Nicholas Brown Center garden was an

Kim Arcand,
Montana Blanco,
Craig Dermody,
and Micah Salkind

Set in the garden of the John Nicholas

Brown Center For Public Humanities and
Cultural Heritage, new work by Roxanne
Crocker facilitates a dialogue between X-ray
images created by Scientists at the Harvard
Art Museum and NASAs Chandra X-ray
Observatory, implicating the garden as a
harbinger of a third hidden narrative.

Dr. Kip Kuntz - M101 (The Pinwheel Galaxy) (2000 - 2005)

Dr. Leisa Townsley - 30 Doradus (The Tarantula Nebula) (1999 - 2006)
David Kolch and Teri Hensick - Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas The Rehearsal ... (1976)

Similarly, historians orchestrate archival

material as a means of illuminating
new perspectives on the past. German
philosopher, Walter Benjamin described
this process as one constantly engaged
in unearthing hidden narrative, unknown
truthsindeed constructing sight lines.

Sight Lines is not a response to the question

of who gets to be called an artist or a
scientist in our society, rather it is a call for
more nuanced, complete acknowledgement
of the complex research that makes our
world a more humane place to live. Rather
than debate the merits of various modes
of inquiry, perhaps we can embrace them
fruitfully in different times and spaces,
acknowledging them honestly for the sight
lines they reveal to us, and those they do
not.

Because X-radiation is a more energetic

type of light than can be detected by the
human eye, these artists actually create new
sight lines, new ways of seeing this world
and worlds we have yet to know.

Might an aesthetic appreciation of X-ray

images help us bridge the gap between
understandings of more scientific research
processes used by art conservators and
astrophysicists, and those used by visual
artists? Undoubtedly the methods utilized
by scientists and artists are more alike than
they are different; all require rigorous, often
exploratory, investigation and attention to
aesthetic minutia.

Dr. Ralph Kraft - Active Galaxy Centaurus A (2007)

Dr. Patrick Slane - Circinus Constellation (2004 - 2005)
Teri Hensick and Becky Hunt - John Singer Sargent Study for North Wall with Side Walls ... (2007)

Through an inverse use of X-ray technology

where high energies are captured rather
than created anew, astrophysicists use
X-rays to reveal the debris from exploded
stars, invisible material swirling around
black holes and other violent phenomena
from deepest space.

Conservators work tirelessly at the

intersection of fine art practice, archival
research and chemical analysis, using
X-ray technology to interrupt the narratives
that define their field. Often in their
investigations, they aim X-rays at a wellknown painting, creating new images with
the potential to shatter an originals value,
if it is a forgery, or settle raging disputes
about its fabricators technique.

Crocker has used design correspondences,

original architectural plans, and Brown
family photographs in her mixed-media
installations to interrogate the fashioning
of new public spaces from formerly private
and aristocratic ones. Through her work,
she introduces audiences to a differently
mediated public knowledge about the
history of the garden, forging new sight
lines that direct audiences to the archive
and beyond.

Dr. Andy Fabian - Perseus Cluster of Galaxies (2002 - 2004)

Carolyn Tomkiewicz and Teri Hensick - Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait ... (1980)

It is the X-ray images slight, formal

variations, its shades of gray, that speak to
its immense social value.

exercise in transplanting wild nature

into an ordered urban environment. This
natural environment was in fact the result
of a highly planned and methodical design
project.

Is the X-ray image a thing of beauty?

Imbued with infinite shades of grey, it begs
a surprisingly simple read as an art object.