Mark Dion

Description

Mark Dion (b.1961) is an American artist who, in making his art, metamorphoses into explorer, biochemist, detective and archaeologist. In his gallery installations around Europe and America since the 1980s, Dion has constructed the laboratories, experiments and museum caches of the great historical naturalists – following in their footsteps in his own adventurous, eco-inspired journeys to the tropics. His research and magical collections are presented in installational still lifes that combine taxidermic animals with lab equipment artefacts, like walk-through Wunderkammers and life-sized cabinets of curiosity.

Lias Graziose Corrin, Director of the Williams College Museum of Art, surveys Dion’s most significant works and his ongoing investigations into natural history’s obsession with categorizing nature. Critic and theorist Miwon Kwon talks to the artist about the interface between ecology and culture and the phenomenon of site-specific art. Norman Bryson, Professor of Art History at the University of California, San Diego, makes an iconographical analysis of The Library for the Birds of Antwerp, an indoor sculpture Dion constructed for 18 live African finches in 1993. The artist has selected a text by novelist Jon Berger, one of the first post-war thinkers to analyze the position of animals in a capitalist society. The book also features Dion’s own provocative, witty and often lyrical writing on nature and his role as an artist engaged in environmental issues.Lisa Graziose Corrin is the Director of the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Formerly Chief Curator at The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, Chief Curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London and Deputy Director of Art at the Seattle Art Museum, she has also contributed to a range of art journals.

Miwon Kwon is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles.  She was a founding editor and publisher of the journal Documents, and serves on the advisory board of October. She is the author of One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (2002).

Norman Bryson is a British-born art historian and Professor of Art History at the University of California, San Diego. He has published widely in the areas of eighteenth-century art history, critical theory, and contemporary art.

“An exquisite and absorbing exploration of Dion’s practice… Richly rewarding.”—Stills

On the Contemporary Artists Series

“The boldest, best executed, and most far-reaching publishing project devoted to contemporary art. These books will revolutionize the way contemporary art is presented and written about.”—Artforum

“The combination of intelligent analysis, personal insight, useful facts and plentiful pictures is a superb format invaluable for specialists but also interesting for casual readers, it makes these books a must for the library of anyone who cares about contemporary art.”—Time Out

“A unique series of informative monographs on individual artists.”—The Sunday Times

“Gives the reader the impression of a personal encounter with the artists. Apart from the writing which is lucid and illuminating, it is undoubtedly the wealth of lavish illustrations which makes looking at these books a satisfying entertainment.”—The Art Book

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