The Lunar Codex uses digital and analog technology to preserve art, books, music, and more, enclosed in time capsules and launched to the Moon. It is a message-in-a-bottle to the future.

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Curatorial Notes

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Gallery C showcases a selection of works from The Νουα and Polaris collections, representing only a small fraction of the total works archived by the Lunar Codex.

 

Highlights of this showcase are works by artists of the 2019 Bennett Prize®. For a decade, Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt collected paintings by contemporary women artists working in the figurative realistic style. The couple embraces this approach in the belief that it celebrates women in all their complexity, vulnerability, and power.

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As the couple’s collection grew, so did their awareness of inequities confronting women in the arts. Museums and galleries have fewer exhibitions and collect fewer pieces of art by women, and even then, they generally sell for less than works by male artists. In addition, over time, figurative realism has fallen out of favor in many art institutions.

 

To help counter these trends, Steven and Elaine created The Bennett Prize through The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Center for Philanthropy - hoping to create an appetite for figurative realism and increase the likelihood that women who work in this genre will achieve the critical acclaim they deserve.

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In selecting these works for inclusion, the Lunar Codex highlights this shared belief with The Bennet Prize that, by showcasing the talent of women figurative painters, women artists will find their place among the most celebrated painters in the art world.

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