Attitudes about space travel have changed radically between the time the Soviets launched Sputnik nearly fifty years ago (and the space race of the Cold War) and today’s regular traffic of international space shuttles. Regardless of tragedies and the unrealized dreams of the space program, travel to outer space remains a powerful catalyst for contemporary artists. It inspires utopianism, nostalgia, fantasy and, at a time of great terrestrial conflict, consideration of serious earthly concerns.

The title of the exhibition comes from the influential jazz fusion musician Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Myth-Science Arkestra. Sun Ra spoke of making music sublime enough to elevate humanity beyond Earth: “I’m looking for answers in the entire universe because I want to know the real potential of man.” Space Is the Place reaches out toward the great galactic realm for both visionary inspiration and human insight.

The exhibition includes sixteen artists from seven countries. Their art is united by the theme of outer space, yet the open-ended parameters of the subject also invite consideration of the technological, environmental and sociopolitical forces that affect our life on earth. For example, Polish-born artist Aleksandra Mir uses a revisionist fantasy of space exploration to comment on the continuing problem of gender inequity in her video First Woman on the Moon, (performed on a beach in the Netherlands 30 years after the first moon walk). Jane and Louise Wilson explore Star City, a “holy relic” of the early space race that was once a top-secret Russian cosmonaut training facility.