Mark Dion
水果派AV解说 College鈥檚 Studio Art Department proudly presents the 2021 Nancy G. Unobskey '60 水果派AV解说ing Artist in Modern and Contemporary Art, Mark Dion.
Exhibit
Exhibit dates:
September 23 - December 15, 2021
Virtual Lecture:
March 11, 2021, 7 p.m.
Biography
Mark Dion was born in 1961 in New Bedford, MA. He initially studied from 1981-82 at
the Hartford Art School of the University of Hartford in Connecticut, which awarded
him a B.F.A. in 1986 and an honorary doctorate in 2002. From 1983-84, he attended
the School of Visual Arts in New York and then the prestigious Whitney Museum of American
Art鈥檚 Independent Study Program from 1984-85. He is an Honorary Fellow of Falmouth
University in the U.K. (2014), and he has an honorary doctor of humane letters (Ph.D.)
from the Wagner Free Institute of Science in Philadelphia (2015).
Dion has received numerous awards, including the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation
Award (2001), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), and the Smithsonian American
Art Museum鈥檚 Lucida Art Award (2008). He has had major exhibitions at the Miami Art
Museum (2006); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004); Aldrich Museum of Contemporary
Art, Ridgefield, CT (2003); Tate Gallery, London (1999), and the British Museum of
Natural History in London (2007). 鈥淣eukom Vivarium鈥 (2006), a permanent outdoor installation
and learning lab for the Olympic Sculpture Park, was commissioned by the Seattle Art
Museum. Dion produced a major permanent commission, 鈥淥CEANOMANIA: Souvenirs of Mysterious
Seas,鈥 for the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco. In 2016, Dion and his curatorial collaborator
Sarina Basta produced the large-scale exhibition ExtraNaturel: Voyage initiatique dans la collection des Beaux-Arts de Paris at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Dion is co-director of Mildred鈥檚 Lane, an innovative visual art education and residency
program in Beach Lake, PA.
For over two decades, Dion has worked in the public realm, from architecture projects
to print interventions in newspapers. His large-scale public projects include 鈥淭he
Amateur Ornithologist Clubhouse,鈥 a Captain Nemo-like interior constructed in a vast
gas tank in Essen, Germany, and 鈥淒en,鈥 a large-scale folly in Norway鈥檚 mountainous
landscape that features a massive sculpture of a sleeping bear in a cave, resting
on a hill of material culture from the Neolithic to the present. Dion has also produced
large-scale permanent commissions for Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany; the Montevideo
Biannale in Uruguay; the Rose Art Museum; Johns Hopkins University; and the Port of
Los Angeles.
Notable solo exhibitions include Mark Dion: Follies at Storm King Sculpture Park (2019); Theatre of the Natural World at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018); Misadventures 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 Mus茅e Oc茅anographique de Monaco and Nouveau Mus茅e 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 Museum of Modern Art (2004); and his renowned Tate Thames Dig at the Tate Gallery in London (1999).
Dion lives with his wife and frequent collaborator, Dana Sherwood, in Copake, NY, and works worldwide.