Mark Dion
By Lauren Horgan
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
Mark Dion was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1961
Currently, he lives and works in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania
He studied at the School of Visual Arts from 1982-1984
He graduated from the University of Hartford in 1986 with a Bachelor’s
degree in Fine Art. He also received an honorary doctorate from
Hartford in 2003.
Was the 9th recipient of the Larry Aldrich Award 2001, and also received
the Lucelia Artist Award in 2008.
Describes himself as a guy who likes to shop and surround himself with
many different types of “stuff”. He uses the funky things he buys to
make his art.
Source: http://pbs.org
“I consider myself a visual artist with a keen interest in the
science of life. My work is mostly about exploring questions
around the representation of nature, which means, that
rather than being about nature, it is concerned with ideas
about nature.”
Dion’s art is about people’s ideas about nature. His work has
to do with humans’ understandings and misunderstandings
about our natural world.
Through his art, he both critiques and admires museums and
the method in which they present information about science,
nature, and art.
Source: http://www.cmoa.org
Ecology
Environmentalism
Consumer Culture
Archaeology
Source: http://www.cmoa.org
Science
Dion’s ideas are influenced by science, and while
making his art he works with scientists.
Alexander Wilson
Illustrator, naturalist, and ornithologist.
Wilson was famous for his illustrations of
birds.
What does Dion mean by
“ideas about nature”?
“…my work tries to investigate
what nature means for a
particular group of people, in a
particular place at a distinct
point in history. Our ideas about
the natural world shift over
time…”
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
Some examples of such ideas:
Protecting the environment
Recycling, clean energy, and other
methods of conservation are fairly
new ideas in history.
Taxonomy
Dion also addresses the established
classification of objects, questioning
them and what people assume they
know about those objects.
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
Vivarium: a transparent enclosure in which small animals are kept so that their
behavior can be studied
A 60ft long tree enclosed in an
80ft greenhouse located in
Olympic Sculpture Park in
Seattle, WA.
"The tree is essentially an
optimistic organism, giving life
through its death, but it is also
an organism that is out of
context. It’s nostalgic for its
original site. It’s a memento mori, an appreciation of decay as a process, and a
tool for discourse. And that’s really how I imagine it, because it isn’t a natural
system. It is really a garden we’re making. It’s a garden that emphasizes a
particular natural process."
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
This is an installation. You will soon see that much of Mark Dion’s work is
installation art. Dion himself said that he specifically likes to make art on site at
a particular place.
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
What is an installation?
Dion: “I don’t want people to see my work only through
representations, through images. I want them to be able to
move through the spaces. It’s important that things have a
texture, a smell, a feeling . . . something that you can never
capture from a photograph.“
Installations are SITE-SPECIFIC. Often in an installation, the
participation of the audience is part of the artwork itself.
"I’m very interested in surrounding
myself with the stuff that inspires
me. I’m an artist who gets a lot from
things, and in that way I’m very much
a sculptor. I really love the world of
stuff. I know a lot of artists who
prefer to have very Spartan lives.
Their inspiration is very much in their
heads. They like clean, white, empty
New York kinds of spaces. But I really
like the surprising juxtapositions
when you put things together on the
bookshelf and when you start to
collect things."
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
What are some of the objects Dion
juxtaposed in this installation?
http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/popup.php?slide=
1403
Books
Tree
Picture Frames
Birds
Jars
Basket
How can you use the ‘stuff’ in your
house to create an interesting work
of art?
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
Here Dion is trying to capture the moment when the artist realizes how much
work he has ahead of him if he wants to perfect his skill. The many watercolor
owls scattered around the desk reflect the notions of diligence and practice.
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
"We are trying to tell our
story, our cosmology, our way
of understanding the world,
through our work in the same
way as the Renaissance
painters who were doing
Annunciation and Crucifixion
scenes. Each one of them did
it differently- just as artists
like me and Matthew Ritchie
or Alexis Rockman, or any of
the other artists who are
interested in these kinds of
things, will use different
languages to tell the same
story."
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
What do you think Mark Dion
is trying to say with this
installation? What is the big
idea?
http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/p
opup.php?slide=1387
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
“I was a child who had collections
and was constantly in search of
things like butterfly nets and cigar
boxes. These things still have a
particular attraction…. As I go
through museums, I see that a lot
of the motivation of curators and
people who are scientifically
trained comes from finding
productive ways of using these
impulses.
FOCAL POINT
What stands out to you the most in
this picture? Where is your eye
drawn to?
http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/popup.p
hp?slide=2186
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
Curiosity Cabinets
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City
of New York (Chinatown Division)
Image © Art21, Inc. 2007
Polar Bear and Toucans (From Amazonas to Svalbard)
Landfill
http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/popup.php?slide=1386
Understanding the interrelatedness of things is
interesting to me, and I think that it’s something that
we often miss in our culture- being able to see the
connections between things, between our actions, our
personal behaviors, and the way they affect a broader
field, the rest of the world for example.
Mobile Biotype
A greenhouse on wheels
Source: http://www.artnet.com, http://www.pbs.org
Installation art:
An artistic genre of site-specific, three-dimensional works
designed to transform the perception of a space.
Juxtaposition [juxtapose]:
To place two or more things together, especially in order to
suggest a link between them or emphasize the contrast between them.
Focal Point:
The center of attention, or area of interest.
Ornithology:
The branch of zoology that deals with the scientific study of
birds.
Taxidermy :
The act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or
for sources of study.
Taxonomy:
The practice and science of classification.
Vivarium:
a transparent enclosure in which small animals are kept so that
their behavior can be studied
http://www.cmoa.org/international/html/art/dion.htm
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/arts/visart_dion.htm
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/dion.php
http://the-artists.org/artist/Mark-Dion
http://network.nature.com/hubs/london/events/1149
http://tate.org