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July 21, 2004

Doctor and Artist to Discuss Where Art and Science Meet


WOODS HOLE, MA—The divergent fields of art and science will meet at 7:00 PM on Thursday, July 29 at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Lillie Auditorium. Painter and sculptor Tobi Kahn, and MBL Visiting Scientist and Chair of the Department of Pathology at the University of Pennsylvania Mark Tykocinski, will discuss “A New Way of Seeing, Reflections on Art and Science,” a look at how these two very different modes of perception have combined to produce Kahn’s art. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Tobi Kahn is an internationally acclaimed painter and sculptor whose work has been shown in over 40 solo exhibitions and major institutions throughout the United States, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He recognizes in sea and sky a majestic correspondence to the intricate structures of nature, from the microscopic to the monumental. Kahn’s way of seeing has been influenced by over a decade of visits to Cape Cod, where he spends time each summer with his closest friend, Dr. Mark Tykocinski and his family. Tykocinski has invited Kahn into his laboratory, where the artist has become fascinated by electron micrographs—images of cells and tissues on a scale of millionths of a meter.

“Where I see cells,” Tykocinski writes, “Tobi sees forms. As he effortlessly traverses landscapes and ‘bioscapes,’ the two soon merge—-and what results is a unity of form.”

Regarding this collaborative artistic approach, Kahn says "In the face of the world's instability I want to reveal those elements that are transcendent, not the evident reality but its essence."

The Marine Biological Laboratory is an internationally known, independent, nonprofit research and educational institution. It conducts the highest level of original research and education in biology, including the biomedical and environmental sciences. MBL hosts research programs in cell and developmental biology, ecosystems studies, molecular biology and evolution, neurobiology, behavior, global infectious diseases and sensory physiology. Its intensive graduate-level educational program is renowned throughout the life sciences. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest private marine laboratory in the western hemisphere.