Art Metropole

#16818

Nova Stella (on the productive introduction of doubt)

Artist

Jonathan Middleton

Price

$4.00

Date

2025

Publisher

Unspecified Art and Design Projects

Format

Ephemera

Size

10.2 × 15.2 cm

Genre

Postcard

This postcard, from a series produced by Middleton for his 2025 solo exhibition Confounded by Time at OHCE-ECHO in Vancouver, depicts a constellation of stars published in 16th century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe’s 1573 publication De Nova et NulliusAevi Memoria Prius Visa Stella (‘The New and Never-Before-Seen
Star’), which details Brahe’s observations about the ‘star’ (now known as Tycho’s Supernova or SN 1572) newly visible in the sky during November of the prior year. Brahe’s observations proved that the object had no visible parallax, and therefore was a distant celestial object rather than a near-to-earth phenomenon. This was a shocking revelation to many, since prevailing views in Europe were that the heavens were a perfect and unchanging system. It is widely held that the supernova led to a more rapid acceptance of Nicolaus Copernicus’s model of heliocentrism over the older geocentric model of the universe. Middleton makes reference to this ‘ideological rupture’ by replacing the ‘new star’ of Brahe’s illustration with an asterisk, a common denotation of qualified information. The development of the asterisk is attributed to Aristarchus of Samothrace in c. 200 BCE, whose name bears striking resemblance to Aristarchus of Samos, who had developed the first known theory of heliocentrism approximately 70 years earlier.

4×6”, digitally printed as a first edition of 50 each.