Cristin Millet: Coronal Plane

ARTIST’S TALK on January 26, noon, Lyceum, Pennsylvania Hall, Third Floor (light lunch provided)

OPENING RECEPTION in Schmucker Art Gallery: January 26, 4:30-6:30 PM

This exhibition of a large-scale installation and sculpture by Cristin Millett focuses on medical history, specifically the human reproductive system. Titled Coronal Plane, Millett’s installation responds specifically to the anatomical Renaissance of the sixteenth century, when the practice of instructional dissection became the preferred method for the study of human anatomy. Modeled on the round anatomy theaters of the sixteenth through nineteenth-centuries, where the corpse was placed in the center, Millett’s work examines both historical assumptions about the female body as well as contemporary issues of privacy, voyeurism, and medical rights. Millett’s artistic method is grounded firmly in research on the history of medicine, how anatomy is studied, and the design of historical surgical theaters. Millett’s installation can be understood as an intersection of scientific inquiry and contemporary aesthetic observations, and as a questioning of socio-political attitudes about sexuality and reproduction.

Cristin Millett’s work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally in solo and group shows, including at the Villa Strozzi in Florence, the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. For twenty years, Millett has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in sculpture, foundry and installation. Millett is a Professor of Art and an Embedded Faculty Researcher in the Arts + Design Research Incubator at the Pennsylvania State University.