Douglas Melini | Tang Teaching Museum

Triangles within a Square: Art and Mathematics

Mathematicians and artists have much in common, sharing the same desires to understand the physical world and to explore and comprehend abstract concepts. One way they do so is through visualizing ideas and relationships. Numerous mathematical ideas are embodied in the visual arts, which, in turn, have helped shape advances in math—as well as computer science and other disciplines—in important ways.

Triangles within a Square: Art and Mathematics draws on art from the Tang Teaching Museum collection to present a range of approaches and concerns that bridge the disciplines. Through paintings, prints, drawings, textile, and sculpture, the exhibition presents images and concepts tied to mathematical perspective, algorithms, computer-generated art, and more, demonstrating the ways in which mathematics and art inform, support, and reflect each other and the world around us.

This exhibition is organized by the Tang’s Malloy Curator Rachel Seligman, in conjunction with the class MA116: Math in the Museum, which she teaches during spring semester 2023. The show is supported by the Friends of the Tang.