Mark Dion (born August 28, 1961) is an American conceptual 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. The job of the artist, according to him, is to "go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention." 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 how pseudo-science, social agendas and ideology creep into public discourse and knowledge production. Some of his well known works include Neukom Vivarium(2006), a permanent outdoor installation and learning lab for the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, WA.

Early life and beginnings

Dion was born in August 28, 1961,

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American p ...

, to a working-class family. He spent his early childhood in New Bedford before relocating to

Fairhaven, Massachusetts Fairhaven (Massachusett: ) is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the South Coast of Massachusetts where the Acushnet River flows into Buzzards Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The town shares a harbor wi ...

, where he was mostly raised. Dion credits the museums and historical architecture in both towns, such as the

New Bedford whaling museum The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States that focuses on the history, science, art, and culture of the international whaling industry, and the "Old Dartmouth" region (now the city of New Bedford and ...

, in helping spark his interests. Dion began attending the

University of Hartford The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut. Its main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. The university attracts students from 48 states and 43 countries. The university and ...

Art School in 1981. He concurrently took classes at the

School of Visual arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

from 1983 till 1984 and later participated at the one-year Independent Study Program of the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, where he studied with conceptual artists

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945), an American conceptual artist, lives in New York and London,

and Hans Hacke, and media artist

Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

. 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. Dion took classes in biology at City College and attended several reading seminars to develop a concrete science foundation. He worked with fellow students Gregg Bourdowitz,

Jason Simon Jason Simon (born March 21, 1969) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. Simon, who is from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation near Sarnia, Ontario, played five games in the National Hockey League for the Phoenix Coyotes and New York Is ...

, Craig Owens. Dion experienced financial issues while attending school, leading him to work thirty hours a week as an art conservator in

SoHo, Manhattan SoHo, sometimes written Soho (South of Houston Street), is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and has also been known for its vari ...

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." Dion received his Bachelors of Fine Arts from the degree in 1986. Dion has received several Honorary degrees, including an honorary doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Hartford in 2003, an Honorary Fellowship of the

Falmouth University Falmouth University ( kw, Pennskol Aberfal) is a specialist public university for the creative industries based in Falmouth and Penryn, Cornwall, England. Founded as Falmouth School of Art in 1902, it was later known as Falmouth College of Ar ...

(2014) and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (Ph.D.) from the

Wagner Free Institute of Science The Wagner Free Institute of Science is a natural history museum at 1700 West Montgomery Avenue in north Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, it is a rare surviving example of a Victorian era scientific society, with a museu ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

(2015).

Career

Dion worked on several small projects like ''The Department of Marine Animal identification of the City of New York (Chinatown division), which'' gave way to his big collaborations with the Wexner Center for the Arts at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

and the Weisman Art Museum at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

Tate Thames Digs at the Tate Gallery (1999)

One of Dion's first big projects was with the

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

in London. As part of Tate Modern's re-opening programme, Dion and a team of volunteers combed the shore of the river at

Bankside Bankside is an area of London, England, within the London Borough of Southwark. Bankside is located on the southern bank of the River Thames, east of Charing Cross, running from a little west of Blackfriars Bridge to just a short distance be ...

in front of

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

, and at

Millbank Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster. Millbank is known as the location of major government offices, Burberry headquarters, the ...

, opposite Tate Britain, in search of artifacts and ephemeral buried beneath the mud and gravel of its beaches. 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 in

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...

, pieces of

Bartmann jug A Bartmann jug (from German ', "bearded man"), also called a Bellarmine jug, is a type of decorated salt-glazed stoneware that was manufactured in Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the Cologne region, in what is toda ...

s and a fragment of human shinbone. "Archaeologists tents" were then set up on the lawn outside Tate Britain, where each item was meticulously cleaned and identified by professionals including

Museum of London The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum (fou ...

staff, Thames River Police and ecologists. 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. First shown at the Tate Gallery as an Art Now installation between October 1999 and January 2000, the finds for Tate Thames Dig are presented according to location in a double-sided old-fashioned mahogany cabinet, alongside photographs of the beachcombers and tidal flow charts. There are also five 'treasure chests' which contain larger items, but which are not part of this work. Organised 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 and

detritus In biology, detritus () is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material. Detritus typically hosts comm ...

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. 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.

New England Digs (2001)

In 2001, assisted by students at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, Dion conducted excavations in a garbage heap on the edge of Seekonk River, a burned down 19th century waterfront sight along the

Narragansett Bay Narragansett Bay is a bay and estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound covering , of which is in Rhode Island. The bay forms New England's largest estuary, which functions as an expansive natural harbor and includes a small archipelago. Sm ...

, in New Bedford, and a dump alongside the edge of a cemetery in

Brockton, Massachusetts Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population is 105,643 as of the 2020 United States Census. Along with Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of Plymouth County. It is the sixth-largest city in Mas ...

. 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 the New England Digs. The material culture unearthed in New 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. 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.

Cabinets of Curiosity at the Weisman Art Museum (2001)

In 2001, Dion collaborated with some few students from the

and Colleen. J. Sheehy, director of Weisman Art Museum, to present an exhibition based on the Cabinets of Curiosities exhibit he had done for the Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio state university in 1997. The project spanned from February through May 2001.

Rescue Archeology: A Project for The Museum of Modern Art (2004)

In the year 2000, The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

's sculpture garden underwent an extensive rebuilding project. The garden was disassembled and the land was excavated to a depth of fifteen feet. Dion lead the series of

archaeological dig In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

s in the garden, recovering a pillar and fragments of the limestone foundation from the nine-story townhouse. A month later he scavenged again in the garden, as well as in the hollowed-out brownstones adjoining the Museum to the west and in the newly demolished Dorset Hotel. 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 of Bruce Nauman’s Audio-Visual Underground Chamber (1972–74), which was installed in the garden as part of the artist’s 1995 retrospective. 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 of Abby 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 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.

Neukom Vivarium (2006)

The Neukom Vivarium is considered one of Dion’s most notable works. It is a permanent installation located in the Olympic Sculpture Park in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

. Dion utilized a 60-foot a fallen Western Hemlock tree as the nurse log inside an 80-foot

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.These ...

. The tree “inhabits an art system,” according to the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

. 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.

Miami Art Museum (2006)

In 2006, Mark Dion conducted a large installation at the South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit that focused on the

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissim ...

and human attempts to control the South Florida ecosystem. 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). The largest component of the installation features a

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of ...

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. The second portion of the installation is a series of reproductions of vintage photographs taken in the early decades of the 20th century by John Kunkel Small, a curator of the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

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. 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.

Solo exhibitions

His works include ''Follies'' at Storm King Sculpture Park (2019), ''Theatre of the Natural World'' at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018), M''isadventures of a 21st Century Naturalist'' at the Institute 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'' at Oakland 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 the

(2004), and his renowned ''Tate Thames Dig'' at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

(1999).

Other works

In 2012, Dion's work was included in dOCUMENTA 13, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in Kassel, Germany, and has also been exhibited at MoMA PS1 in New York,

Guggenheim Bilbao The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spa ...

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

, and the

. The artist has also completed other public commissions which include Den, a site-specific installation for the National Tourist Routes in Norway (2012), An Archaeology of Knowledge for

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

(2012), and Ship in a Bottle for Port of Los Angeles Waterfront (2011).

In recent years

Dion resides with his wife, artist Dana Sherwood, in

Copake, New York Copake is a town in Columbia County, New York, United States. The population was 3,346 at the 2020 US census, down from 3,615 at the 2010 census. The town derives its name from a lake, which was known to the natives as ''Cook-pake'', or ''Ack-koo ...

, and continues to conducts his works worldwide. He currently mentors at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and is co-director of Mildred's Lane, a visual art education and residency program in Beach 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. Dion is the subject of a monograph published by Phaidon and a documentary on the PBS series ''art:21''. In 2015, Dion visited

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theolog ...

to conduct works shops and lectures with students and faculty.

Awards and nominations

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).

References

External links

by Roberta Smith, ''New York Times'', of Dion's 2013 gallery exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Interview
with Dion, March 22, 2013, Artforum.com *
Preview
' of interview with Dion, ''Artforum'', September 2012 (subscription required to view full article) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dion, Mark 1961 births Living people American installation artists Artists from Massachusetts Columbia University faculty People from New Bedford, Massachusetts University of Hartford alumni American conceptual artists