68 Prince Street is is honored to bring the esteemed Ellen K. Levy, PhD and her unique and fascinating work. Levy is a New York-based multimedia artist, writer, and educator who explores the intersections of art, science, and technology. Her works probe the influence of scientific paradigms on visual culture and the reverse. In numerous exhibitions (e.g., Michael Steinberg Fine Arts, Associated American Artists) and publications (e.g., Art Journal (1996), Bloomsbury (2021), and Routledge (2013)), she engages themes of invention and space exploration. She co-edits an art and science special book series for Routledge, Taylor & Francis. She was a Distinguished (Luce) Visiting Fellow at Skidmore, recipient of an AICA award, co-recipient of a seed grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and three times an invited participant in Robert Wilson’s Art and Neuroscience Watermill Workshop. Career highlights include a NASA commission and solo exhibitions at the New York and National Academy of Sciences (DC). Her art is in collections of NASA, Smith College, and The Ringling Museum among others. She has been in landmark group exhibitions overseen by Lucy Lippard and Martin Kemp. Her art was part of the Getty’s PST Art and Science Collide Initiative (2024) about invention. Her co-edited anthology about the legacy of D’Arcy W. Thompson in the arts was longlisted by the British Association of Historians. While President of the College Art Association she expanded interdisciplinary conference discussions and opportunities, and she was instrumental in publishing guidelines for the protection of animals used in artworks.

“...one of Levy’s profound interests has to do with how (and why) the concept of outer space has changed our views of earth and the cosmos. In our recent era, revised observations are seemingly the result of recorded images taken from the earliest airplanes, followed decades later by the images taken from orbiting satellites. Interplanetary space probes now introduce a new topological methodology to perspective, an analytical and conceptual approach that prioritizes connectedness, relationships, and spatial structure over institutions as NASA’s Art Program on Space.

Today, many of Levy’s images are based on views of earth taken from the International Space Station (ISS), the massive, habitable satellite, the orbiting research laboratory that serves as a home in space for rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts. For her work, Levy studies the views available from ISS research, as she tries to envision what space outside earth looks and feels like. She also considers the more mundane adaptations humans need to make in order to live and pursue research in zero gravity in outer space. For example, this means NASA’s inventing a coffee cup that keeps liquid from floating away. Also, how to deal with the ramifications of astronaut tears in a zero-gravity situation. Human tears are spherical and pool rather than flow downward.” — excerpt of essay ‘Ellen K. Levy, Astute Interdisciplinary Artist’ by Barbara London

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