On the origin of art

Art has a basis in biology. It is possibly adaptive, something that helped you survive and to procreate, and to pass your genes into future generations. Yes, art is also cultural, profoundly so; we're not saying the cultural is not important, simply that it has been made out to be the only way of looking at art. Why we keep making and looking art? How does it work for the art maker and the art viewer, in a deep, biological sense? Here is where our guest curators come in: Steven Pinker, Geoffrey Miller, Brian Boyd, and Mark Changizi. Four bio-cultural scientist-philosophers working at the forefront, the cutting edge are asking the biggest and most exciting questions about the origin of art. The substantial publication accompanying this exhibition includes each guest curators' illustrated thesis on why we make art, gorgeous illustrations of the exhibited works, and a foreword by David Walsh about why MONA is so interested in looking at art through a scientific prism.