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From Imagination to Reality: Art and Science Fiction

A new art exhibit on display at the Academy explores more than 100 years of science fiction history.

Published October 27, 2004

By Fred Moreno and Jennifer Tang
Academy Contributors

An illustration from the 1906 French language edition of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, a classic in the field of science fiction. Image courtesy of Henrique Alvim Corrêa via Wikimedia Commons

The blending of fantasy and prediction with science gave birth more than 100 years ago to a unique literary genre known as science fiction. It takes the latest ruminations from the realms of science and extrapolates them to present conflicts that drive some of the most thought-provoking-and entertaining—fiction of our time.

The New York Academy of Sciences Gallery of Art & Science will take a close look at the eye-catching and exotic images that often illuminate science fiction and how the concepts depicted are grounded in real science in an exhibition opening November 5. From Imagination to Reality: The Art of Science Fiction will feature works illustrating such themes as robotics and extraterrestrials, space development and habitats, genetic engineering, computers, and time travel.

Artists represented will include Wayne Barlowe, John Berkey, Vincent Di Fate, Dean Ellis, Donato Giancola, Paul Lehr, Richard Powers, John Schoenherr, Gene Szafran, Murray Tinkelman, and Michael Whelan. A special feature of the show will be a selection of sci-fi movie props, including the severed hand for the 1951 film, The Thing from Another World, and a fiberglass casting from the final headpiece worn in the classic 1954 movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Ubiquitous in Popular Culture

Guest curator for the exhibition is Vincent Di Fate, one of the world’s leading painters of futuristic themes whose book, Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art, is considered the definitive volume on the subject.

“At its very best science fiction can provide compelling insights into the future and a better understanding of the human condition,” said Di Fate. “That it can sometimes predict the future with a stunning accuracy is only an incidental consequence of its purpose to entertain.”

Di Fate noted that the art of science fiction has become so ubiquitous in culture that virtually anyone can identify a robot, a ray gun and a few dozen other iconic objects of the genre on sight, whether they’ve actually ever read a science fiction story.

“For example, most of what we think about anthropomorphic mechanical beings-robots-comes from science fiction, with some important preliminary thinking on the subject presented in Isaac Asimov’s robot stories,” he said. “Computer technology also has long been a subject of science fiction literature, with the widely-used term ‘cyberspace’ coming from the pages of William’s Gibson’s landmark novel Necromancer.”

Other staples of the genre, such as rocket ships, aliens of all types, and space exploration have inspired some wonderful and exciting art, Di Fate explained. Even sociological issues such as overpopulation and racism are reflected in science fiction and the images it inspires.

“In a sense, science fiction is about the shape of things to come,” he said. “The Academy exhibition demonstrates that SF art, in reflecting things yet to be, illustrates how imagination can become reality.”

From Imagination to Reality: The Art of Science Fiction will be on view from November 5, 2004 to January 28, 2005.

Also read: The Art and Science of Human Facial Perception


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