“A reset button for the universe pressed only once.” This phrase is from the artist Katie Paterson’s poignant Ideas series. Nowadays, we wonder if only.

Image:
Katie Paterson
IDEAS (THE UNIVERSE REWOUND AND PLAYED BACK IN REAL TIME), 2019
Micro waterjet-cut sterling silver
4 1/4 x 9 1/8 x 1/4 in
10.8 x 23.2 x 0.6 cm
Edition of 3

Robert Fludd, the 16th century Hermetic philosopher, was among the first to identify the relationship between the microcosmic and the macrocosmic. Fludd expressed the impulse to qualify and quantify the inherent link between man and the universe. As we now grapple for our place in the larger order of things and reckon with the contemporary moment, we have curated Cosmologies, a selection of our artists’ approaches to matters of the universal.

In our online video feature below, Josiah McElheny speaks about his Observation series, the visionary singer June Tyson, and the possibility and necessity of finding, seeing, and creating worlds unlike our own.