{"id":4855,"date":"2017-12-30T11:45:36","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T16:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=4855"},"modified":"2017-12-31T08:04:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T13:04:32","slug":"mark-dion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2017\/12\/30\/mark-dion\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing \u2018Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist\u2019 With The 4-Year-Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 4-year-old and I are on the MBTA\u2019s Silver Line heading to see the exhibition \u201cMark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist\u201d<\/a> at Boston\u2019s Institute of Contemporary Art (through Dec. 31, 2017). We had boarded with a bunch of people carrying luggage, apparently heading to the airport. I ask the 4-year-old where he would like to travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cTasmania,\u201d the 4-year-old says. \u201cTo look for the Tasmanian tiger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tasmanian tiger is believed to have gone extinct in the 20th century. But the 4-year-old has heard about it from a kids television show, and hopes beyond hope that the tiger still roams \u2026 and that he can find it.<\/p>\n

We walk over from the Silver Line stop, along the harbor, to the ICA. One of the first rooms of the Dion retrospective is decorated with wallpaper depicting extinct creatures\u2014the dodo, passenger pigeon, some sort of rhino, wooly mammoth and \u2026 the Tasmanian tiger.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of sad. Because Tasmanian tigers are my favorite animals of all the animals,\u201d the 4-year-old says.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion, models of “Den” (left) and “Neukom Viverium,” 2017. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mark Dion is a New York-based artist who creates installations resembling scientists\u2019 laboratories or natural history museums to addresses people\u2019s interactions with nature\u2014often about how we humans hurt nature. It is a subject our 4-year-old\u2014like many 4-year-olds\u2014cares passionately about as well. While the art intrigues grow-ups, Dion\u2019s presentations are also engaging and understandable to young children.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “The Library for the Birds of New York\/The Library for the Birds of Massachusetts,” 2016\/2017. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dion’s “The Library for the Birds of New York\/The Library for the Birds of Massachusetts\u201d (2016\/2017), allows you to walk into a giant birdcage with 18 zebra finches and four canaries fluttering around a dead tree inside. Traps and duck decoys and books (\u201cHunting Big Game in the City Parks\u201d) hang from the tree or are arranged around its base\u2014and are speckled with bird droppings. The 4-year-old stays for a while, a bit nervous about the birds\u2019 flight paths, but excited.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “Toys ‘R’ U.S. (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth),” 1994. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dion’s 1994 installation “Toys ‘R’ U.S. (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth)\u201d imagines a kid\u2019s bedroom decorated with dinosaurs to a crazy degree\u2014bedspread, toys, games, wallpaper, posters, on and on. It evokes our grown-up culture\u2019s fascination with the extinct beasts\u2014but also speaks about our culture of disposable consumerism and over consumption. For the 4-year-old, it is the bedroom of his dreams.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “Landfill,” 1999-2000. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dion repeatedly circles around all the junk with which we pollute the earth. His 2014 \u201cCabinet of Marine Debris\u201d features actual bottle caps, buoys and flip-flops he found washed up on the coast of Alaska. His 2000 installation “Landfill” is like a natural history museum\u2019s life-size diorama of gulls and other critters feeding on a garbage dump. \u201cThat looks like a small crow right there and a dog and a pigeon, a seagull,\u201d the 4-year-old says. The message? \u201cEarth is being littered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of San Francisco (Chinatown Division),” 1998. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometimes Dion plays at being a scientist. His 1998 installation “The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of San Francisco (Chinatown Division)\u201d pretends to be a laboratory. In fact, the artist went to markets in San Francisco\u2019s Chinatown and bought fish there and then put them in jars like specimens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?!?\u201d the 4-year-old says. \u201cThat idiot. He collected those specimens from the wrong place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “The Classical Mind (Scale Naturae and Cosmic Cabinet),” 2017. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 4-year-old was fascinated by the coral, taxidermied goose, taxidermied cat, mushrooms and a copy of \u201cAlice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland\u201d neatly arranged on the steps of the freestanding stairway of Dion\u2019s 2017 “The Classical Mind (Scale Naturae and Cosmic Cabinet).\u201d<\/p>\n

A sign explained that the artwork \u201crepresents destructive ways in which ancient philosophies have influenced human understandings of the world. The staircase references the Great Chain of Being, a hierarchical scheme for organizing nature with roots in the thought of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.\u201d The 4-year-old carefully photographed each step.<\/p>\n

Along the side of the stairway is a door. Inside you find a darkened room and bench on which you can sit. We couldn\u2019t tell just from experiencing it, but a sign explains that it was meant to represented an \u201castronomical system that places humanity at the center of the universe.\u201d Mostly it was just a secret hideout to sit quietly for a minute and experience the magic. \u201cIt\u2019s like a planetarium,\u201d the 4-year-old says. \u201cYou could see stars on the ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “Memory Box,” 2016. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 4-year-old resents rules prohibiting touching things at museums, so he is fond of Dion’s 2016 “Memory Box,” a wooden shed which you\u2019re invited to walk inside and rummage through boxes stacked on shelves along the back wall. Dion has said, \u201cI want to provoke a childlike curiosity and the anxiety of looking through your mother and father\u2019s chest of drawers when they\u2019re not home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019ll find the smallest one,\u201d the 4-year-old says. He opens boxes containing toy guns, a metal horse, slides, a View-Master, little plastic people, cards printed with pictures of animals, until he is satisfied that he has located the smallest box. Inside is a tiny set of pulleys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was weird,\u201d the 4-year-old says. \u201cBecause you get to touch the boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit: Mobile Laboratory,” 2006. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A yellow truck, Dion\u2019s 2006 “South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit: Mobile Laboratory,\u201d nearly fills one gallery. It\u2019s the manifestation of a fantasy\u2014a vehicle to rush out to rescue South Florida flora and fauna when real estate development threatens natural habitats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like nature,\u201d the 4-year-old notes. \u201cIf every animal goes extinct, what are we going to do?”<\/p>\n

\n

Help us keep producing our great coverage of local arts by contributing to Wonderland’s Launch Fundraiser<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion, model of “Den,” 2017. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “Mobile Bio Type\u2014Jungle,” 2002. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood’s “Encrustations,” 2012, with found objects and real marine specimens artificially weathered, “a marvel of ‘fantastical archaeology’ and trompe l’oeil sculpture.” (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of San Francisco (Chinatown Division),” 1998. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “The Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of San Francisco (Chinatown Division),” 1998. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “Cabinet of Marine Debris,” 2014. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion’s “The Library for the Birds of New York\/The Library for the Birds of Massachusetts,” 2016\/2017. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Four<\/a>
Four live canaries and 18 zebra finches in Mark Dion’s “The Library for the Birds of New York\/The Library for the Birds of Massachusetts,” 2016\/2017. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 4-year-old and I are on the MBTA\u2019s Silver Line heading to see the exhibition \u201cMark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist\u201d at Boston\u2019s Institute of Contemporary Art (through Dec. 31, 2017). We had boarded with a bunch of people carrying luggage, apparently heading to the airport. I ask the 4-year-old where he would like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,192,104],"tags":[37,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4855"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4864,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855\/revisions\/4864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}