Since the late 1980s Mark Dion (b. 1961, Massachusetts) has been delving into the tropes and research methods of scientists, explorers, museum curators and archaeologists. He has created a body of work that playfully presents art as scientific enquiry or field work, questioning how knowledge is gathered, classified and displayed. Five installations will be displayed at Whitechapel Gallery, incorporating diverse subjects such as hunting blinds, heraldic banners and an extraordinary array of objects drawn from the mudbanks of the Thames, Manchester flea markets and American curiosity shops. The show will also include a brand new commission comprising of a library-cum-aviary, complete with 22 live finches. Beautifully designed with allusions to Victorian tomes, guidebooks and Dion's own artistic style, the catalogue also features new essays by Gilda Williams and Petra Lange-Berndt, an interview between the artist and Iwona Blazwick and an anthology of writings selected by Dion himself.
"The American artist Mark Dion (b. 1961) makes enthralling installations of flora and fauna and of the material cultures of science and display. They echo Renaissance cabinets of curiosity, nineteenth century dioramas and, with their unsettling inclusion of everyday detritus, the absurdist displays of the Surrealists. Yet they are urgently contemporary, foregrounding the complex and increasingly hazardous relation of humanity with other species and ecosystems. This fully-illustrated book spans over 30 years of work through six environments. Each encompasses sculpture, drawing, print and photography and is also the stage for an absent protagonist. Marion Endt-Jones, Ben Luke, Chelsea Kinchin-Smith, Magnus af Petersens, Candy Stobbs and Gilda Williams unravel the clues, historical narratives and contemporary symbolism imbedded in each work, alongside a conversation between Iwona Blazwick and Mark Dion, an overview of his practice by Petra Lange-Berndt and a beautiful short story by Andrea Barrett."