Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere, Paris

Those who devote their lives to the mathematics often come to love them passionately, to the rest of us, they have always been relatively inaccessible, and so we only understand how important they are. But for many people, their symbolism evokes mystical experiences.

The hidden symmetries that lurk beneath the surface of everyday’s routine, exploration and discovery of the beauty of parallel worlds, is certainly a unique experience in human thought. The exhibition Mathematics; A Beautiful Elsewhere, which will be displayed at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, until the 18^th of March, clearly sponsored a dialogue between 6 mathematicians and 8 contemporary artists to revolve around math, and interpretations that arise from combining them with the arts.

The Mathematicians who will be present in this exhibition are: Alain Connes, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, Sir Michael Atiyah, Nicole el Karoui, Don Zagier, Giancarlo Lucchini, Cédric Villani and Misha Gromov. They come from all over the world and from a variety of mathematical disciplines, either from number theory, algebraic geometry, differential geometry, topology, partial differential equations, applied mathematics, or biomedicine.

The exhibition has been jointly developed by the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHÉS) and sponsored by UNESCO.

8 artists, chosen for their skills, versatility to listen, great sense of curiosity and wonder, will accompany these mathematicians. They are artists who have previously exhibited at the Foundation: Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, Beatriz Milhazes, Takeshi Kitano, Patti Smith, Jean-Michel Alberola, David Lynch, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Tadanori Yokoo, as well as Pierre Buffin and his team (BUF).

All of them have worked to transform the abstract thought of mathematics in an experience of stimulation for the mind and the senses, an experience accessible to everyone.

It shouldn’t have been easy to plan this exhibition. Mathematics, after all, consist of the manipulation of symbols. The exhibition explores mystery and strangeness.

The exhibition presented by Lynch is a dome, which projects 3 animations inspired in his conversations with the Russian mathematician Misha Gromov. One explores the nature of fire by mathematical formulas. Another shows the creation of the universe and a third gives an overview of the most important scientific works. All accompanied by music of Patti Smith in the background.

The documentalists Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret exhibit several short pieces in which various mathematical attempt to explain how they perform their art and what motivates them to do so.

In the last room, a bright figure is unmasked in an empty space, a pseudo-sphere of Hiroshi Sugimoto, depicting ideal forms, dreamed for more than a millennium by all philosophers, paralleling with the world we live in which we are continually subjected to machine controls.

“Mathematics, A Beautiful Elsewhere” is a mosaic of  cinema, art, geometric and algebraic, that gives the viewer the opportunity to experience the beauty of mathematics. For more information: http://fondation.cartier.com/en/art-contemporain/26/exhibitions/27/mathematics-a-beautiful-elsewhere/

Ara

Come and see this exhibition that hosts many surprises, and begins to understand why mathematics are so essential to everything we do in life, and why many are fascinated with them. Discover what mathematics are about, while renting apartments in Paris and visit this exhibition at the Cartier Foundation.

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