Echoes of Voynic: Curated by Marcie Begleiter

“This single, original Voynich manuscript encourages us to sit with the concept of truth and to remember that there are ineluctable mysteries at the bottom of things whose meanings we will never know.”

-Jo Livingstone, the New Yorker

Echoes of Voynich: Coded Systems in Contemporary Art is a group show inspired by the heretical Voynich Manuscript. This extraordinary 15th-century herbarium delves into medieval ideas of natural science. It presents a closely observed world using intricate drawings imbued with imagined spirits and anthropomorphized powers, alongside elaborately coded text that has never been deciphered.

In a similar spirit, these eight contemporary artists push back on established orders of classification offering worlds of subjective structures, where closely observed nature is conflated or indistinguishable from highly personal systems. Through painting, drawing, photography, artist books and installation work, Echoes of Voynich offers a multi-faceted view of artworks making connections and dissolving boundaries between Flora,Fauna and (Un)earthly Matter.

The exhibit is part of the Getty Institute’s PST.ART series, this year focusing on the theme of “Art + Science: Collide”. The accompanying catalog will feature an essay by the renown artist and scholar Johanna Drucker focusing on the Voynich Manuscript’s enduring fascination for artists, cryptographers, medievalists and anyone who enjoys a literary and artistic mystery.