Mark Dion
(New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1961)
Dion studied at Hartfort Art School, Connecticut, where he received a BFA in 1986 and an honorary doctorate in 2002. The artist’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions have had a decisive influence on our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. Through the appropriation of scientific methodologies of data collection, inherent worlds such as those of archaeology, zoology, and ecology, the artist questions the role of science as an authoritative and objective voice in the contemporary society. It is precisely by pursuing these aims that he often creates spectacular cabinets of curiosities, modelled on the typologies of the Wunderkammern, or collaborates with natural history museums, aquariums, and zoos. During his career he has received numerous awards, including the ninth edition of the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), and the Lucida Art Award of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2008).
Among his solo and group exhibitions, we can mention: True Stories Part II (Institute of Contemporary Art - London, 1992); Unseen Fribourg (Fri-Art Centre D'Art Contemporain Kunsthalle - Fribourg, Switzerland, 1995); Skandinavischer Pavillon (Venice Biennale - Venice, Italy, 1997); Tate Thames Dig (Two Banks) (Tate Gallery - London, 1998); New England Digs (Fuller Museum of Art - Brockton, MA, 2001); Microcosmographia (University of Tokyo Museum - Tokyo, 2002); Systema Metropolis (Natural History Museum - London, 2007); Solo Show, Art Unlimited (Art Basel - Basel, 2008); Mark Dion / MATRIX 173 (The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art - Hartford, CT, 2015); Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st Century Naturalist (Institute of Contemporary Art Boston - Boston, 2017); Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World (Whitechapel Gallery - London, 2018); Mark Dion: The Life of a Dead Tree (Museum of Contemporary Art - Toronto, 2019).
