The Nature of Color – Opens March 2020
[CHEERFUL MUSIC]
[Bright, multicolored power is tossed against a black background in slow motion]
[Colorful video clips of animals, plants, and human activities cycle on screen]
ROB DESALLE (CURATOR, THE NATURE OF COLOR): Color is one of those things that we see around us all the time and that we probably take for granted.
[Rob DeSalle appears on screen in front of a purple background.]
DESALLE: This exhibition, the Nature of Color, will give you the full spectrum of information about color.
Color is central to how we understand evolution.
[Green, single-celled organisms swim under a microscope; a chameleon with bright red, green, and blue skin looks at the viewer.]
DESALLE: Animals use color in almost every way you can think possible.
[A pair of emperor penguins with orange beaks and accent feathers walk in front of a large group of penguins; a large school of yellow fish swim in a coral reef.]
DESALLE: To camouflage themselves,
[An octopus quickly changes the color of its skin to match a rock it sits on.]
DESALLE: …to warn other organisms off,
[Brightly colored poison dart frogs leap with a RIBBIT sound.]
DESALLE: …to attract mates.
[A male peacock displays its impressive feathers and HONKS.]
DESALLE: Plants have used colors in many different ways to attract pollinators.
[A yellow and black butterfly sips from an orange flower; a bee crawls in a yellow flower; a white moth sips from a flower bud.]
DESALLE: If you’re a plant that opens your flower late at night, you don’t want to be dark. You want to be white.
[Time-lapse of a white gladiola flower blooming; small white flowers on tall stalks sway in the night breeze.]
DESALLE: If you’re a plant and you want to attract, say, a bird, you want to have a bright color.
[A hummingbird sips from a red flower while in flight; time-lapse of pink cherry blossoms blooming on a branch.]
DESALLE: If you look around you, you see human beings use color in many various ways.
[A little girl and boy blow party horns in front of colorful streamers; a hand moves colorful game pieces across a board game; sports fans dressed in team colors with painted faces cheer from the stands.]
DESALLE: Color in culture is a fascinating subject,
[Time-lapse of a busy Tokyo intersection at night with bright electric signs and car lights.]
DESALLE: …because it allows us to dig deep into our way of dealing with day-to-day human life.
[A neon “Open” sign flashes in a store window; a hand presses the green button on a credit card machine; a father hands a green backpack to his son and a pink backpack to his daughter.]
DESALLE: Color is an important way for us to communicate and we’ve used it for tens of thousands of years.
[Images cycle onscreen of examples of blue pigment through history: a blue Egyptian funerary figure, a Zapotec urn with blue coloring, a Chinese blue-and-white teapot, Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and a shibori-style dyed indigo fabric.]
DESALLE: And it continues…
[Two young people with different shades of blue hair laugh as they walk along a heavily graffitied wall.]
DESALLE: …in art,
[A palate knife moves paint on a palate.]
DESALLE: …and in fashion,
[A woman picks out clothing from a rack.]
DESALLE: …and in other areas where color is very, very important.
[Flags of many nations wave in the wind outside of the United Nations building in New York City.]
DESALLE: We wouldn’t have color if it wasn’t for physics.
[Green lights of the Aurora Borealis move across the night sky.]
DESALLE: We wouldn’t have colors if it weren’t for the evolutionary process.
[Time-lapse of a purple crocus flower blooming; a rainbow lorikeet TWEETS while looking into the camera.]
DESALLE: We wouldn’t have colors if it weren’t for the cultural attitudes of people.
[A woman buys cotton candy from a colorful vendor at a carnival.]
DESALLE: We’re all seeing a different world of color, and that’s what’s really spectacular.
[Children cast colorful shadows in cyan, yellow, and magenta on a white background.]
[More colorful powder is tossed in the air in slow motion. The Museum’s 150th-anniversary logo appears with text reading “THE NATURE OF COLOR, OPENS MARCH 2020.”]
Color is woven so tightly into our lives that we rarely stop to question what it is and how it works. Where do the colors in diamonds and rainbows come from? How have some animals benefited by evolving to stand out, while others survive by blending in? Why do some colors make us happy while others make us, well, blue? The Nature of Color, a new exhibition opening in March 2020 at the American Museum of Natural History, reveals how color carries information both in nature and across cultures.