Athens, Ga. – The Xerces Society, Installment VI: Sir Samuel Cropia’s Public Laboratory will be on view at the Georgia Museum of Art from Sept. 11 through Oct. 10.
This exhibition is a collaborative project led by Laleh Mehran, a professor in the digital media department of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. Mehran is working with students and faculty from the art school, Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE), the Georgia Museum of Natural History and the department of entomology in transforming the Letitia and Rowland Radford Study Collection Gallery into a laboratory of art and science.
The Xerces Society, Installment VI: Sir Samuel Cropia’s Public Laboratory, a contemporary work of performance and installation art, will address the blurring of the intersections between art, science and politics. This installment of the Xerces Society displays the typical workplace of a lepidopterist, Sir Samuel Cropia, who harbors a fanatical devotion to his butterflies and beliefs. Sir Cropia is a fictitious, world-renowned lepidopterist known for an extreme dedication to the preservation and proliferation of butterflies.
Regular performances by various laboratory players and the presentation of key artifacts will help reveal the malevolent nature of Sir Cropia’s research and methodologies. In the laboratory, Sir Cropia’s private goals subtly manifest themselves through painstaking manipulation of laboratory personnel and the exploitation of scientific authority. The intention of the Xerces Society, whose title makes reference to the North American butterfly conservation society and the ancient king of Persia, intends, as it enters its sixth year, to investigate the complexities of fanaticism and ideology under the auspices of art and science.
A special performance will take place on Friday, Sept. 17, from 7 to 9 p.m., during the opening reception for the museum’s fall exhibitions. Collaborators, participants and assistants include Jon Dunn, Kevin Stamper, members of the Athens community and UGA students in art, drama and entomology.
For more information, visit www.uga.edu/gamuseum.
Museum Information
Partial support for the exhibitions and programs at the Georgia Museum of Art is provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The Council is a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Individuals, foundations and corporations provide additional museum support through their gifts to the University of Georgia Foundation. The Georgia Museum of Art is located in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the East Campus of the University of Georgia. The address is 90 Carlton Street, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, 30602. Hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m., Sunday from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. and closed Mondays. Museum Shop Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4:45 p.m., Sunday from 1 p.m. until 4:45 p.m. and Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 8:45 p.m.