Often considered scientific documents, maps are also aesthetic objects, shaped by any number of formal choices. Maps are supposedly objective, yet they incorporate cultural values and political beliefs. The sixteenth-century Mercator projection, for example, places Europe at the center of the visual field and makes it disproportionally large in relation to Africa. Different world views produce different views of the world.

Many modern artists, working in a wide range of media, have become fascinated by the formal richness and social significance of maps and have responded by making works of art that build upon map imagery and map-making strategies. Maps offer artists a vehicle for examining cultural issues ranging from personal identity to international politics, provide a connection from art to science, and suggest an intricate system of representation combining verbal, visual, and symbolic elements.

Previous exhibitions have combined maps and map-inspired art, but World Views: Maps and Art for the first time presents historical and modern-day maps, contemporary art utilizing map forms and strategies, and commissioned art installations. Rob Silberman, associate professor of art history at the University of Minnesota, is guest curator for the exhibition.

The first section is devoted to maps ranging from medieval mappaemundi that show the entire world as it was then conceived to contemporary images using information gathered by satellites. The James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, one of the major map archives in the United States, is the primary source for the historical artifacts, including a copy of the sixteenth-century German map which was the first to include the name "America". Current technology related to mapmaking was produced by the cartography lab in the University of MinnesotaÕs department of geography.

From this introduction, World Views: Maps and Art continues with a display of contemporary art related to maps. Jasper Johns, Robert Indiana, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Joseph Cornell, Yoko Ono, Richard Long, Alighiero e Boetti, Kim Dingle, and Nancy Graves are just some of the artists whose work is included in this section of the exhibition. These works represent artistsÕ attraction to maps as a system of visual representation and as a means to explore a full range of artistic, cultural, and political issues.

And finally, the Weisman has commissioned Ilya Kabakov, Laura Kurgan, and KNOWMAD Confederacy, a creative collaborative formed by Mel Chin, to create new installations related to maps and map imagery (see next page for biographies of these artists). The commissioned works will suggest an expanded sense of possibilitiesÐÐnot just artistic, but humanÐÐas we approach the new millennium.

An 80-page fully illustrated catalogue, entitled World Views: Maps and Art, accompanies the exhibition. The book includes a provocative essay by guest curator Rob Silberman entitled World Views: Fact, Fiction, "Terra Incognita" and eminent geographer Yi-Fu TuanÕs piece Maps and Art: Identity and Utopia. Also featured are the installations by the commissioned artists. World Views: Maps and Art is available in the Weisman Museum Store and distributed nationally by the University of Minnesota Press.

World Views: Maps and Art is made possible through the generous support of the James Ford Bell Foundation, the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Institute of Museum and Library Services supports the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota. Additional operating support is provided by the General Mills Foundation, the Colleagues of the Weisman Art Museum, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the University of Minnesota.

World Views Commissioned Artists

Maps or map-like works appear occasionally in the art of Ilya Kabakov, an ŽmigrŽ artist from the Soviet Union who now lives on Long Island when he isnÕt trotting the globe. Very often when Kabakov utilizes maps, he does so to chart his own complex response to the Soviet system he lived in for so long. Before his emigration in 1988, Kabakov was an underground artist who supported himself through childrenÕs book illustration. Since moving to the United States, he as concentrated on elaborate art installations. His work has appeared at such museums as the Centre George Pompidou in Paris, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

The Weisman invited artist Mel Chin to create an installation work for World Views. In characteristic Chin fashion, he decided to investigate the hazy border between mapping, fine art, and vernacular culture to create a work that incorporates the virtual reality of video arcade gaming, exquisite designs of tribal carpets from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Caucasus, and Central Asia, and nomad lifestyles past and present. A creative team of equal collaborators, called KNOWMAD Confederacy, are now producing this imaginative installation. KNOWMAD artists include Rocco Basile, Emil Busse, Mel Chin, Tom Hambleton, Brett Hawkins, Andrew Lunstad, Jane Powers, and Chris Taylor.

Artist, architect, and architecture and design professor at Princeton University, Laura Kurgan is originally from South Africa but now resides in New York City. Her recent work involved computer-based installations using the mapping technology called Global Positioning System (GPS). For World Views, Kurgan shifts her concern to surveillance imagery drawn from satellite data. Her work has been featured at the List Art Center at M. I. T. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.