PAV Contemporary Art Center (Parco d'Arte Vivente) and Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (June 9th to September 25th, 2011)
Eduardo Kac, Natural History of the Enigma, transgenic flower with artist's own DNA expressed in the red veins, 2003/2008.
Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.
Eduardo Kac, "Edunia Seed Pack Studies" (from the Natural History of the Enigma series), 22 x 30" (55.88 x 76.2 cm) each, lithographs, 2006. Edition of 15.
Collection Virgile Novarina, Paris.
Collection Monique Pignet, Paris.
The central work in the "Natural History of the Enigma" series is a plantimal, a new life form Kac created and that he calls "Edunia", a genetically-engineered flower that is a hybrid of Kac and Petunia. The Edunia expresses Kac's DNA exclusively the red veins of the flower. The gene Kac selected is responsible for the identification of foreign bodies. In this work, it is precisely that which identifies and rejects the other that the artist integrates into the other, thus creating a new kind of self that is partially flower and partially human. Developed between 2003 and 2008, and first exhibited from April 17 to June 21, 2009 at the Weisman Art Museum, in Minneapolis, "Natural History of the Enigma" also encompasses a large-scale public sculpture, a print suite, photographs, and other works.
Eduardo Kac, Edunia Seed Packs (from the Natural History of the Enigma series), hand-made paper objects with Edunia seeds and magnets, 4 x 8 inches (10.16 x 20.32 cm) each, 2009.
Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.
Eduardo Kac, "Essay Concerning Human Understanding", live, bi-directional, interspecies communication work between two remote locations, 1994. In this work, a canary dialogues through the Internet with a plant.
In one location the bird sings at will. At another, remote, location, the plant senses the bird's song and responds. The plant's electrical fluctuation is sensed and converted into sounds that travel back to the bird's cage.
Eduardo Kac, Cypher, DIY transgenic kit with Petri dishes, agar, nutrients, streaking loops, pipettes, test tubes, synthetic DNA, booklet, 33 x 43 cm, 2009.
"Cypher" (2009) is a fusion of a sculptural artist's book and a do-it-yourself transgenic kit containing a minilab with Petri dishes, nutrients, and synthetic DNA, which has a poem written by Kac embedded in its genetic sequence.