From October 21, 2011 to March 18, 2012, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will present the exhibition Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere, an exhibition developed in association with the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) and under the patronage of UNESCO.
For this unprecedented event, the foundation has opened its doors to the community of mathematicians and asked artists with whom it has worked closely in the past to accompany them in order to create opportunities for seeing, hearing, doing, thinking and interpreting mathematics. By bringing mathematics into its premises, the Fondation Cartier is itself undergoing the “sudden change of scenery” described by the mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck.
Mathematics is everywhere, from the finite boundaries of material reality to the infinite vastness of conceptual universes. It embraces both the real world and the world of ideas; its protagonists are thus writers, discoverers and inventors. Michel Cassé, an astrophysicist, and Hervé Chandès, general director of the Fondation Cartier, guided by the mathematician Jean-Pierre Bourguignon who heads the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, conferred with numerous mathematicians and scientists, and invited six of them to be the exhibition’s overseers: SIR MICHAEL ATIYAH, ALAIN CONNES, NICOLE EL KAROUI, MISHA GROMOV, CÉDRIC VILLANI AND DON ZAGIER. Representing a wide range of geographical backgrounds and mathematical disciplines, they are among the most prominent researchers in the world today in fields such as number theory, algebraic geometry, differential geometry, topology, partial differential equations, probability, and mathematics applied to biology among other disciplines. In order to make these researchers feel at home in its spaces, the Fondation Cartier has assembled a group of eight artists, with whom it has previously worked: JEAN-MICHEL ALBEROLA, RAYMOND DEPARDON ET CLAUDINE NOUGARET, TAKESHI KITANO, DAVID LYNCH, BEATRIZ MILHAZES, PATTI SMITH AND HIROSHI SUGIMOTO. Chosen for their exceptional ability to listen and observe, as well as for their sense of curiosity, these eminent figures from the worlds of art and cinema worked hand-in-hand with the mathematicians to transform and combine the aesthetic, scientific and educational aspects of mathematics into a tangible experience.
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
261, boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris
T +33 (0)1 42 18 56 50
F +33 (0)1 42 18 56 52
fondation.cartier.com
Image: © Artwork Tadanori Yokoo.