Mark Dion’s “Full House” @ the Aldrich Museum
L.P. Streitfeld
As the Aldrich
Museum of Contemporary breaks ground, a 22 foot fallen tree lives under glass
in the original structure. “Vivarium” means many things. For one, the
tree is an ancient symbol for life. For another, a tree with live insects crawling
through it symbolizes the merging of art and natural science in the 21st century.
Finally, the tree is a symbol of the curatorial experimentation that has defined
the Aldrich Museum since the 18th century house was converted into an exhibition
venue for the contemporary art in 1964.
In the exhibition
planned for this summer, “A River Half Empty: Artists Engage in Connecticut’s
Environment,” the museum will continue to move beyond the myopic art world
to address broader concerns of the 21st century.
“Mark Dion:
Full House” fills the entire original part of the building with an eccentric
and engaging display of the numerous preoccupations and roles inhabited by an
environmentally oriented artist who blurs boundaries between science, art and
natural history. This artist’s extreme investigation into narrative arises
in a personal mythology fueled by extreme dedication to process.
Meanwhile, Janice
Caswell’s new work, installed in the second floor Micro Gallery, is another
superb sign that the Aldrich remains dedicated to this movement that pushes narrative
back into the art world. This intimate space is filled with iconic maps of a
life’s journey catalogued on a white background with the aid of hole-punched
paper, collage, marker, acrylic and pins. As an orderly pattern arises out of
apparent chaos in this artist’s recording of personal movement, the linear
transforms into the cyclical. This lyrical vision of aliveness achieves the difficult
feat of simultaneously reflecting and transcending a personal accounting of time
and place. When an artist takes back the gallery space to relate a personal journey
that resonates on a universal plane of abstraction akin to musical composition,
viewers become participants in the evolution of art into a new century.
Mark Dion has long
pioneered the presentation of natural science in the art gallery, along with
establishing venues for his art in natural history museums. The artist was recipient
of the 2001 Larry Aldrich Foundation Award that provides a monetary grant along
with this solo exhibition.
At the core of Dion’s art are the curiosity cabinets on view in the second
floor gallery. These meticulous displays of archeological and natural objects
inspired much of Dion’s personal drawings, many of which are on exhibit
for the first time. Dion is a fine draftsman and meticulous record keeper, as
documented by photos, scrapbooks and notebooks (including journals from 1990
to the present) in this exhibition. Utilizing a talent for drawing as a communication
tool while working abroad, the artist developed a cartoon language. This iconography
of biological record keeping is threaded through the work, uniting the personal
with the universal while examining the role that museums play in the presentation
and interpretation of the natural world.
A 1994 installation,
“When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth,” depicts the manner in which the pop
culture both portrays and exploits nature for consumerism. The installation is
a child’s bedroom taken over by dinosaurs. They are on the bedspread, the
wallpaper, calendars, stamps, poster, plastic toys, stuffed animals and every
sort of container.
Another room holds “Library for the Birds of Connecticut.” Bird skeleton
prints made directly from X-rays are the most beautiful images in the exhibition.
The branches of a tree hold a library with books such as “The Web of Life”
and “Man: An Endangered Species.” His son’s camouflage jacket
hangs from a branch. On the walls are images of birds that run afoul of people,
birds that have been mended and camouflage bird paintings.
The totality of
“Full House” is an artist’s meaningful penetration into a chosen
field of investigation that transcends considerations of artistic medium or style.
This holistic journey goes a long way towards producing a narrative of a transcendent
personal mythology that brings the scientist within the artist to the fore.
In following this self-reflecting passage, the artist pays homage to his heroes
even as he criticizes the manner that they have been presented to the public.
A gallery displays portraits of 18th and 19th century naturalists, yet “The
Delirium of Alfred Russell Wallace” is a curiosity not to be found in either
a natural history museum or an art gallery. The installation attempts to duplicate
the environment of the naturalist in the jungles of Asia — complete with
hammock, stove and a stuffed fox. This unique form of storytelling communicates
an introspective narrative of identification where sculpture and artifact overlap.
It would seem that
“Full House” is one artist’s response to historical developments
that legitimized the artifact as art. Free from the constraints of labeling his
creative process, Dion organizes objects in a manner that serves his own investigations
rather than previously established structures. In successfully blurring the boundary
between art, natural history and science, Dion is free to operate in the manner
he pleases in the gray area he has carved out for his unique creations.
Investigation of
cultural agenda has never been more essential than it is today, a time when the
paradigm is visibly shifting and ingrained systems are subject to uncertainty.
For example, a stuffed polar bear above a shipping crate serves as a metaphor
for the traffic of artwork even as it is presented as an artwork ready for trafficking.
This brings us to the pertinent message of this exhibition. The art world is
collapsing boundaries between science and art through the greater use of technology
in creation.The unfortunate result is a reinforcement of the alienation that
technology has created in the culture. The effect of “Full House” is
just the opposite. By bringing nature inside the art museum, we feel even more
alive.
