Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Science Opens at The Tang Jan. 29

SARATOGA SPRINGS – The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College presents Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Science, a new exhibition featuring historical artifacts and contemporary art that demonstrate the ways in which fiber craft techniques and materials have influenced and impacted scientific fields like mathematics, digital technology, medicine, and more. The exhibition runs Jan. 29 through June 12. 

Visitors will encounter works that span centuries and are made by artists, scientists, and mathematicians alike. 

A 15th-century Incan khipu-the oldest work on view-presents a system of cords, knots, and dyes that recorded local and state administrative information and narratives. Mathematician Daina Taimina’s Hyperbolic sketch, 2006, offers a crocheted representation of the mathematical theory of hyperbolic space; she was the first to create a functional model of this theory after more than a century of claims that such a feat was impossible. 

Artist Dario Robleto’s The Creative Potential of Disease, 2004, presents a Civil War-era doll that was made by an amputated Union soldier as a self-portrait as part of his recovery

The exhibition also features the Saratoga Springs Satellite Reef, a collaborative artwork made up of hundreds of crocheted corals created in the last year by amateur crafters and professional artists from the Capital Region and beyond. The reef installation is one of nearly 50 such satellite reefs created around the world as part of the Crochet Coral Reef project by Christine and Margaret Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring. 

The public reception will take place 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29. Admission to the museum is free. All visitors are required to show proof of vaccination and to wear masks. For more information, call the Visitors Services Desk at 518-580-8080 or visit tang.skidmore.edu.