Atoms Are Art in CUNY Graduate Center Exhibition

“Microscapes: The Hidden Art of High Technology,” features fascinating, beautiful, and arcane images from the world of scientific microscopy, enlarged and reproduced in full color and crisp black-and-white. Based on cutting-edge microscope technology and photographic

techniques, the exhibit brings viewers a rare glimpse of atoms, electrical currents, liquid crystals, optical fibers, microprocessors, and numerous other formations that are normally the province of research scientists, but are reproduced here not only for their scientific value but for their mesmerizing aesthetic beauty as well. The photographic techniques employed in the creation of such images include interferometry (where a light source is split and then rejoined), thermography (the mapping of infrared heat), photomacography (image enlargement without the use of a microscope), and photomicrography (the creation of photos taken through a variety of advanced microscopes). The exhibition has previously appeared at such institutions as the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Len Stern, the curator of “Microscapes,” is a photographer and photographic consultant. His photos have appeared in such publications as Forbes , National Geographic , Newsweek , The New York Times Magazine , and Fortune . He also spent twenty-three-year years as a photographic supervisor at Western Electric and AT&T, heading a staff of photojournalists and technicians that produced a broad range of corporate materials. In addition, Mr. Stern is an author, lecturer, and former president of Photographic Administrators, Inc., a non-profit group organized for the purpose of sharing information among leaders in the photographic industry.

The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York, the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City.

Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of about 3,300 students in 32 doctoral programs and seven master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 30 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program.

According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast.

Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu.

Seymour Durst began his collection in 1962 after visiting Paris, where he found a German edition of an elaborate photographic book about New York City in a bookstore window. Eventually, even the refrigerator in Durst’s townhouse was filled with books (he ate out). He had, in fact, moved twice to accommodate the ever-growing library.

Durst assembled his library in a manner that would arouse both the envy and despair of the average librarian. It was organized by what he termed the "Durst Quintessimal System" and filled all but four of the 20 rooms in the house. Each room had a different theme and if a book fell into three different categories he would simply buy three copies, one for each related room. Some of the other rooms/categories include the Postcard & Guide Room, a kitchen closet reserved for NY Historical Society publications, the Art & Theatre Room, the Architecture Closet, the Commerce and Finance Room, the Biography Room, etc. The Reading Room at The Graduate Center reflects those categories of organization, and the furnishings include a rug, table, breakfront, and couches from Durst’s study, along with book cabinets built especially for the room. For research purposes, a database has been created that will be accessible online and will make it convenient to use the material. It may be accessed by going to the Old York Foundations website at www.oldyorklibrary.org.

The thousands of items encompass such things as an invitation to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, which is referred to as "the East River Bridge;" bound editions of Harper’s Weekly from 1850 to 1915; Durst’s own favorite book, E.B. White’s Here is New York; The Bowery on Seventy-Five Cents a Day; an autographed copy of Theodore Dreiser’s My City; and numbered editions of Al Hirschfeld’s 1932 Manhattan Oases (199/200), featuring drawings of city speakeasy bartenders, and the artist’s 1941 depictions of Harlem (445/1000). Among the more rare books, though not directly related to New York City, is an original edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense with Paine’s own edits hand-written between the lines. (See press release for more examples.)

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