More on Mark Dion

I watched the Art21 interview with Mark Dion, where he talked in general about his practice and also about a couple of specific pieces. Here are my notes:

"I really identify with the mission of the museum, where you go somewhere to gain knowledge through things." I think I very much agree with that too.

"There are a lot of tools that an artist has that the scientist doesn't have. Humor, irony, metaphor. . . these are sort of the bread and butter of artists."

he did this piece about puffin colonies being infiltrated by tag-along rats -- so he tarred them and hung them from a tree -- the rats themselves came from a biological supply company . . . which isn't what they are about. He said they aren't supposed to read as lab rats int his case.

"I think for myself and for a number of artists, science really functions as our worldview. our relationship to science is very much like the renaissance relationship to theology." He sees the role of contemporary art as functioning as "critical foil to dominant culture"

And here is a quote about him on the Art21 site:
"The job of the artist, he says, 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. The artist’s spectacular and often fantastical curiosity cabinets, modeled on Wunderkabinetts of the 16th Century, exalt atypical orderings of objects and specimens. "

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There is also an interview with him in the catalog for the "Becoming Animal" exhibition.
(His piece in that show was the Library for the Birds of Massachussets or whatever)

Mark Dion: interview with him on page 52, on didactic style

[about him and collaborating with Bill Scherrerine]
"We felt that certain ecological calamity could be avoided by access to knowledge; that if people understood situations like the crisis in biodiversity, though habitat loss, they would act to alleviate the problem. Our didactic style expressed the notion that somehow the information is just not getting out. Now I am convinced that knowledge is not hte issue and that there is a profound lack of will. I grossly miscalculated the power of ideology, desire, coercion, superstition, and pure greed."

Later, "The presentation of captive animals is little different than the display of other riches and trophies." he talks about museums and zoos and the way they function to display the riches, resources, etc. of their owners . . . which makes me want to make highly jeweled, gorgeous, GLITTERY animals in cages as trophy displays of wealth . . . (53) and he says that another relationship between art museums and zoos are that rarity brings value. "There are very few Vermeers. There are very few pandas. Both bring in the masses." :) MAKE A GLITTER PANDA? Damn. That would be great. :) 

He also describes himself as pessimistic now about the lack of forseable progress in the environmental movement, admitting that we will probably just continue to beocme a less diverse, more boring, and more preciarious sort fo planet. :( But he has a "glimmer" of hope that keeps him making this kind of work and being engaged with these issues.

I think this work relates more maybe to conservation than scientific research specifically, though his other work definitely references science more directly.