Mark Dion | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 28, 1961 (1961-08-28) (age 64) |
| Education | University of Hartford School of Art (BFA, 1986)[1] |
| Known for | Installation art |
| Notable work | Neukom Vivarium,Polar Bear and Toucans (From Amazonas to Svalbard) |
| Awards | Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001), Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), Lucida Art Award (2008) |
Mark Dion (born August 28, 1961) is an Americanconceptual artist best known for his use of scientific presentations in his installations. His work examines the manner in which prevalent ideologies and institutions influence our understanding of history, knowledge and the natural world.[2] The job of the artist, according to him, is to "go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention".[3] By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Dion questions the objectivity and authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society, tracking howpseudo-science, social agendas and ideology creep into public discourse and knowledge production. Some of his well known works includeNeukom Vivarium (2006), a permanent outdoor installation and learning lab for theOlympic Sculpture Park inSeattle, Washington.[4][5]
Dion was born on August 28, 1961, inNew Bedford, Massachusetts, to a working-class family. He spent his early childhood in New Bedford before relocating toFairhaven, Massachusetts, where he was mostly raised.[6] Dion credits the museums and historical architecture in both towns, such as theNew Bedford Whaling Museum, in helping spark his interests.[6]
Dion began attending theUniversity of Hartford School of Art in 1981.[2][6] He concurrently took classes at theSchool of Visual arts inNew York from 1983 till 1984 and later participated at the one-year Independent Study Program of theWhitney Museum of American Art, where he studied with conceptual artistsJoseph Kosuth andHans Haacke, and media artistBarbara Kruger.[6][7] There, he was encouraged by faculty to utilize interdisciplinary approaches that would afford a unity of his wide-ranging interests, and he began creating installations inspired by his passion for research and collecting.[6]
Dion took classes in biology atCity College and attended several reading seminars to develop a solid foundation in science. He worked with fellow studentsGregg Bourdowitz,Jason Simon, Craig Owens.[6]
Dion experienced financial issues while attending school, leading him to work thirty hours a week as an art conservator inSoHo, Manhattan that specialized in nineteenth century American art. Although, Dion credits his time there as helping him see representations as objects, saying "Working in the studio, one would see an object in the middle of its life. I found that incredibly interesting."[8]
Dion received hisBachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Hartford School of Art in 1986.[9][2][6]
Dion worked on several small projects likeThe Department of Marine Animal identification of the City of New York (Chinatown division), which gave way to his big collaborations with theWexner Center for the Arts atOhio State University and theWeisman Art Museum at theUniversity of Minnesota.[6]
One of Dion's first big projects was with theTate Britain in London.[10] As part of Tate Modern's re-opening programme, Dion and a team of volunteers combed the shore of the river atBankside in front ofTate Modern, and atMillbank, opposite Tate Britain, in search of artifacts and ephemeral buried beneath the mud and gravel of its beaches.[11][12] A wide variety of objects and fragments were uncovered, ranging from clay pipes, oyster shells and cattle teeth to plastic toys and shoes. The more unusual finds included a bottle containing a letter inArabic script, pieces ofBartmann jugs and a fragment of human shinbone.[13] "Archaeologists tents" were then set up on the lawn outside Tate Britain, where each item was meticulously cleaned and identified by professionals includingMuseum of London staff, Thames River Police, and ecologists.[13]
Once collected and processed Mark Dion created an artwork from the objects and artefacts. The finds are presented as an installation, arranged in a mahogany cabinet alongside photographs of the beachcombers and tidal flow charts.[14]
First shown at the Tate Gallery as an Art Now installation between October 1999 and January 2000, the finds forTate Thames Dig are presented according to location in a double-sided old-fashioned mahogany cabinet, alongside photographs of the beachcombers and tidal flow charts.[15] There are also five "treasure chests" which contain larger items, but which are not part of this work.[13] Organized loosely according to type (such as bones, glassware, pottery, metal objects), the viewer finds them in seemingly unhistorical and largely uninterpreted arrangements. Antique items sit alongside contemporary items, ephemera anddetritus are next to objects of value. Each is a material witness, performing the same function as a historical proof. This lack of distinction is an important aspect of Dion's approach, and he resists the reading of history as a necessarily linear progression.[16] The only differentiation is a geographical one, the two sites retaining their individual identities. The lack of historical categorisation suggests a subversion of standard museological practice. Viewers are free to create their own associations, to trace histories across time, not necessarily in a linear direction.[17]
In 2001, assisted by students atBrown University and theRhode Island School of Design, Dion conducted excavations in a garbage heap on the edge ofSeekonk River, a burned-down 19th century waterfront site along theNarragansett Bay, in New Bedford, and a dump alongside the edge of a cemetery inBrockton, Massachusetts.[18] The group along with Dion unearthed and collected a plethora of items and contemporary artifacts, all of which were cleaned, categorized and complied into an exhibition named theNew England Digs.[18]
The material culture unearthed inNew England Digs yielded three unique yet related assemblages, pointing to regional legacies of economic vitality—New Bedford was once a major whaling hub, Providence was a booming trade center and producer of jewelry, and Brockton was the shoe capital of the world—as well as their decline.[19] But in Dion's quintessential style, historically significant finds are democratically mingled with refuse and it all looks stunning. “There is a long history of using trash in modern art”, Dion has stated, “but here objects are allowed to exist as what they are or were, without metaphor, noninterpretive, not even archaeological.[18]
In 2001, Dion collaborated with some few students from theUniversity of Minnesota and Colleen. J. Sheehy, director ofWeisman Art Museum, to present an exhibition based on theCabinet of Curiosities exhibit he had done for theWexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University in 1997. The project spanned from February through May 2001.[20]
In the year 2000, theMuseum of Modern Art's sculpture garden underwent an extensive rebuilding project. The garden was disassembled and the land was excavated to a depth of 15 feet (4.6 m).[21] Dion lead the series ofarchaeological digs in the garden, recovering a pillar and fragments of the limestone foundation from the nine-story townhouse.[22] A month later he scavenged again in the garden, as well as in the hollowed-outbrownstones adjoining the Museum to the west and in the newly-demolished Dorset Hotel.[22] His findings included historical artifacts such as cornices, moldings, shards of ceramic and glass, sections of fireplace mantels, wallpaper pieces, and bricks from distinct phases of the Museum's expansion, as well as more recent ephemera, including the remains ofBruce Nauman'sAudio-Visual Underground Chamber (1972–74), which had been installed in the garden as part of the artist's 1995 retrospective.[23]
A series of six fireplace mantels salvaged from the brownstones adjacent to the Museum and fully restored by the Dion, are intended to refer to the living room ofAbby and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., renowned for its warmth and intimacy. A custom-made cabinet presents objects cleaned and classified not by scientific criteria but by the artist's own logic; visitors are invited to peruse its contents and appreciate its odd organizational paradigms. Finally, a functional laboratory and a group of photographs recording Dion's behind-the-scenes archaeological “performance”, as he calls it, reveal an interest in experimentation and process that balances his investment in the finished product.[23]
TheNeukom Vivarium is considered one of Dion's most notable works.[citation needed] It is a permanent installation located in theOlympic Sculpture Park inSeattle, Washington.[24] Dion utilized a 60-foot (18 m) fallenWestern Hemlock tree as thenurse log inside an 80-foot (24 m)-longgreenhouse. The tree “inhabits an art system”, according to commentary by theSeattle Art Museum.[25] By “inhabits”, they mean insects, fungi, lichen, and other plants. Visitors are provided with magnifying glasses and field guides if they find a creature particularly attention-grabbing. By virtue of being organic,Neukom Vivarium is an ever-evolving piece. Bacteria and mushrooms appearing one day may be replaced with moss and bugs the very next.[26]
In 2006, Mark Dion conducted a large installation at the South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit that focused on theEverglades and human attempts to control the South Florida ecosystem.[27]
Interweaving the diverse disciplines of art, science, ecology, history, and archeology, Dion's project consists of three parts, corresponding to the three major periods of Everglades history: exploration (late 1700s – mid 1800s); exploitation (mid-1800s – early 20th century); and preservation and restoration (mid-20th century – the present).[28]
The largest component of the installation features afacsimile of a vehicle and equipment belonging to an imaginary agency that rushes into vulnerable ecosystems to save threatened plants and animals: the South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit.[28]
The second portion of the installation is a series of reproductions of vintage photographs taken in the early decades of the 20th century byJohn Kunkel Small, a curator of theNew York Botanical Garden who identified numerous plant species in the Everglades and authored a scathing book entitled From Eden to Sahara: Florida's Tragedy, which documented the changes wrought by dredging and draining the area.[27]
The third portion consists of a vitrine containing artifacts, including a book of pressed specimens, the Herbarium Perrine (Marine Algae), purportedly belonging to 19th century botanist and early Florida settler Henry Perrine. Perrine was partly responsible for the overzealous introduction of foreign plant species to the area, which now poses one of the gravest threats to the ecosystem. Like the installation's vehicle, the vitrine and its components are a fiction invented by the artist.[27]
In 2015, Mark Dion completed his permanent installation,The Undisciplined Collector, in a small ground-floor gallery inside theRose Art Museum atBrandeis University inWaltham, Massachusetts. The room-sized space is a recreation of a 1961-style residential "den", awunderkammer ortime capsule filled with authentic period artifacts gleaned from various Brandeis collections. The year 1961 was the birth year of both the artist and the museum, and some of the exhibits reflect news coverage of the latter's debut.[29] The collections on view include vintage record albums and magazines, cocktailswizzle sticks, Chinesesnuff bottles, small sculptures, and other minor artworks, trophies, and souvenirs which were available in that year.[30][29]
Visitors may enter the installation to examine the artifacts at close range, and to relax on the retro-replica sofa while reading. The furnishings were custom-built to the artist's specifications, and reflect theMid-century modern style of the time.[29] A small passport-sized 40-page booklet narrates the history of the Rose Art Museum, and the sourcing of some of the artifacts on view. A set of three blue insert sheets catalogs many of the artworks and other items on display; copies of the booklet can be purchased for $5 from an attendant at the entry to the museum.[31][32]
A temporary exhibition atLe Laboratoire inCambridge, Massachusetts focused onjellyfish and their role in past and currently-changing ecologies. The show included a mock Victorian classroom and a mock bakery storefront featuring foods made with jellyfish.[33] A centerpiece was a large aquarium tank containing hundreds of live jellyfish, undulating gently while suspended in space.[33] The exhibition was partially sponsored by the HarvardWyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and theNew England Aquarium.[34]
Dion's works includeFollies atStorm King Art Center (2019);Theatre of the Natural World at theWhitechapel Gallery, London (2018); Misadventures of a 21st Century Naturalist at theInstitute of Contemporary Art Boston (2017);Mark Dion: The Academy of Things at The Academy of Fine Arts Design in Dresden, Germany (2014);The Macabre Treasury at Museum Het Domein in Sittard, The Netherlands (2013);Oceanomania: Souvenirs of Mysterious Seas at Musée Océanographique de Monaco and Nouveau Musée National de Monaco / Villa Paloma in Monaco (2011);The Marvelous Museum: A Mark Dion Project atOakland Museum of California (2010–11);Systema Metropolis at Natural History Museum, London (2007);The South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit at Miami Art Museum (2006);Rescue Archaeology, a project for theMuseum of Modern Art (2004); and his renownedTate Thames Dig at theTate Gallery inLondon (1999).[2]
In 2012, Dion's work was included indOCUMENTA 13, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in Kassel, Germany, and has also been exhibited atMoMA PS1 in New York,Guggenheim Bilbao,Minneapolis Institute of Art,Tate Gallery, and theMuseum of Modern Art. The artist has also completed other public commissions which includeDen, a site-specific installation for theNational Tourist Routes in Norway (2012),An Archaeology of Knowledge forJohns Hopkins University (2012), andShip in a Bottle for Port of Los Angeles Waterfront (2011).[35]
Dion resides with his wife, artist Dana Sherwood, inCopake, New York, and continues to conduct his works worldwide.[2] He currently[when?] mentors atColumbia University and is co-director of Mildred's Lane, a visual art education and residency program inBeach Lake, Pennsylvania. He continues to make frequent collaborations with museums of natural history, aquariums, zoos and other institutions mandated to produce public knowledge on the topic of nature.[4]
Dion is the subject of a monograph published byPhaidon,[36] and a documentary episode of thePBS seriesArt:21.[37]
In 2015, Dion visitedColgate University to conduct workshops and lectures with students and faculty.[38]
Dion received the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001), The Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Lucida Art Award (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2019).[2]
Dion has received several Honorary degrees, including an honorary doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Hartford in 2003, an Honorary Fellowship of theFalmouth University (2014) and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (PhD) from theWagner Free Institute of Science inPhiladelphia (2015).[5][4][2]
