Mapping the Infinite: Cosmologies Across Cultures, created in collaboration with scientists at the Carnegie Observatories and the Griffith Observatory, presents a group of rare and visually stunning artworks from different cultures and time periods to explore the variety of human attempts to explain the universe’s origins, mechanics, and meaning. Nearly every ancient culture has seen the heavens as a mirror of cosmic structure and process, and ancient measurements of time were directly influenced by the movements of heavenly bodies. Mapping the Infinite reveals how, as religions evolved, cultures conceived of and depicted cosmic deities and concepts of time and space through works of art and sacred architecture. The exhibition illuminates this history of cosmologies around the globe from the Stone Age to the present, from Neolithic Europe to the present day and including Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Islamic Middle East, the Indigenous Americas, Northern Europe, and the United States.

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Island Universe: Josiah McElheny

Sep 12, 2024 - ongoing
LACMA, Resnick Pavilion

Josiah McElheny’s dramatic Island Universe, installed in the center of the Resnick Pavilion, embodies the concept of the multiverse, or multiple coexisting universes. Now a key element of contemporary cosmological thinking, the concept of the multiverse was first proposed in ancient Greece, then in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and 18th-century astronomy. McElheny, who is interested in how scientific inquiry is conditioned by and impacts philosophical, sociological, and political thought, finds a clear connection to the historical shifts that call for the decentering of Western knowledge, and even human-centric thought. The artist worked collaboratively with astrophysicist David Weinberg in developing Island Universe, which he considers “drawings of time,” with “each rod a measure of time—every inch, time doubles.”

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