Mark Dion
Mark Dion. OCEANOMANIA
The American conceptual and installation artist Mark Dion (born 1961 in New Bedford, Massachusetts) is one of the leading figures in contemporary art, whose body of work lies at the intersection of the visual arts, the natural sciences and institutional critique. Since the mid-1980s, Dion has been exploring the representation of nature within scientific and museum discourses. His site-specific and conceptual installations frequently draw on the aesthetics and structure of historical natural history museums, laboratories and archaeological research sites.
In doing so, he deconstructs established classification systems and critically examines how human knowledge of the natural world is generated, hierarchised and ideologically instrumentalised. In the spring and summer of 2011, Mark Dion realised an inter-institutional exhibition project in Monaco under the overarching title OCEANOMANIA: Souvenirs of Mysterious Seas, from the Expedition to the Aquarium. The conceptual foundation of the project was the critical juxtaposition of two contrasting maritime events in recent history: the scientifically ambitious Census of Marine Life (2010) and the ecological disaster involving the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
The project spanned two prominent exhibition venues in the Principality and linked art-historical exhibits with marine scientific research.
The first stage took place at the Musée Océanographique de Monaco. Here, based on extensive archival research, Dion developed a monumental, site-specific intervention in the form of a monumental cabinet of curiosities. Measuring 10 metres in height and 18 metres in width, it became the largest marine cabinet of curiosities ever conceived. Within it, Dion arranged a multitude of forgotten and rare collection pieces from the holdings of the institute founded by Prince Albert I, including historical diving suits, taxidermy specimens such as a polar bear, as well as delicate skeletons and fossils. The installation explored humanity’s historical endeavour to catalogue the oceans, transforming the scientific collections into an aestheticised, epistemological spectacle.
At the same time, Dion staged an exhibition at the Villa Paloma, a central exhibition space of the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM). In the Salle aux Trésors there, he curated an eclectic group exhibition dedicated to the artistic interpretation of maritime life. The show brought together works by renowned artists such as Bernard Buffet, Matthew Barney, Man Ray and Lucio Fontana, juxtaposing them with rarely exhibited marine science specimens and oceanic landscapes by Claude Monet.
The complex structure and transformative genesis of these two corresponding exhibitions were documented on film by Ralph Goertz in 2011. The resulting documentary film, produced in collaboration with the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund for the series talking about art, makes a significant contribution to the reconstruction of Dion’s artistic practice. It makes the administrative and technical process of reviewing, selecting and rearranging museum objects – in dialogue with the artist – comprehensible, and preserves this temporary synthesis of art and science for art-historical research.
Photos: Ralph Goertz © IKS-Medienarchiv