Mark Dion
Visual Artist / Artista Visivo

Mark Dion collaborated with Amy Yoes during their Fall 2013 Project Fellowship, the Above / Below Ground Project.  He was in residence at Siena Art during the Fall 2013.

Mark Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. The job of the artist, he has stated, is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention.

Appropriating archaeological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between 'objective' ('rational') scientific methods and 'subjective' ('irrational') influences. His spectacular, and often fantastical, curiosity cabinets that are modeled on Wunderkabinetts of the sixteenth century, exalt atypical orderings of objects and specimens. By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Dion questions the authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society.

Dion has had major exhibitions at the Miami Art Museum, Florida (2006); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004); Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2003); and Tate Gallery, London (1999). His Neukom Vivarium (2006), a permanent outdoor installation and learning lab for the Olympic Sculpture Park, was commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum. He received a BFA (1986) and an honorary doctorate (2003) from the University of Hartford School of Art in Connecticut. Dion lives and works in New York with his wife and frequent collaborator Dana Sherwood. He is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mark-dion

www.mildredslane.com

Information on "Gyre",a recent expedition/exhibition at the Anchorage Museum 2013

http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/galleries/gyre/overview.aspx

http://www.expeditiongyre.com/mark-dion/

Sart life