Mark Dion

Mark Dion (b. 1961) is a natural fit to collaborate with Graphicstudio because of the highly interdisciplinary nature of his visual art. His practice investigates museumology, scientific history and methodology, taxonomy, environmental studies, even taxidermy. His exploration of museum practice and installation methodology can often blur the line between works of art and natural history museum installations. Dion’s work has touched on such timely and critical issues as environmental politics and public policy, the philosophy and ethics of collecting, diversity within museum collections, and the mediated understanding of nature through the lens of dominant ideologies.

World in a Box

A staple of Dion’s work has been his use of Renaissance collections known as wunderkammern, curiosity cabinets containing encyclopedic collections of exotic items. World in a Box is a suite of 27 charts, graphs, diagrams and lists, a wunderkammer in a box. It makes use of many different printmaking techniques, including lithography, etching, digital printing, cyanotype, woodcut, letterpress, screenprint and direct gravure. The prints making up World in a Box are contained in a handcrafted wooden box including a colophon that gives the name of each print, and which is signed by Dion.

Herbarium

Dion based the Herbarium portfolio of seven photogravures on Henry Perrine (1797-1840), a doctor, horticulturist and diplomat, who was one of the first American naturalists to grasp the vast agricultural potential of Florida. As a pioneer in subtropical botany, Perrine tirelessly collected previously unknown flora, gathering masses of plants, roots, seeds, shoots, and herbarium specimens. In 1838, the United States Congress awarded Dr. Perrine a vast land grant in southern Florida to establish an experimental botanical station for the research of alien tropical plants introduced to United States soil. However, before the experimental station was operational, Perrine was murdered in a Seminole raid on Indian Key. During the attack, the house and compound were burned and Perrine’s invaluable herbarium and specimens were lost. Dion’s distressed portfolio of pressed marine algae specimens is in response to this tragic loss, presenting itself as the few remaining specimens salvaged from the remains of Perrine’s herbarium.

Tree Scheme

Dion based his two-color lithograph Tree Scheme on the “figurative system of human knowledge,” or the tree of Diderot and d’Alembert. This classification system was developed to represent the taxonomy of human knowledge itself and appeared in Diderot’s Encyclopédie, a general encyclopedia published in France in the last half of the 1700s. Dion literally adopted the idea of the “tree” and entitled it “The Representation of Nature” on the trunk. Its leafless branches bear words—terms, names, disciplines—that relate to our responses to, and knowledge and classification of, the natural world. Surrounding the tree on the ground are objects that can be taken as a warning: the watering can of “The Museum of Natural History,” which can nurture the tree, the axes of “capitalism” and “the art world,” which can cut it down, and the fungi of “inertia.”

Printmaking + Sculpture Terms

Printmaking Glossary

Sculpture Glossary

Sales

For sales, or more information about an edition, please contact Graphicstudio at (813) 974-3503 or gsoffice@usf.edu.

Copyright + Reproduction

Images of the artwork are jointly owned by the artist and Graphicstudio. Reproduction of any kind including electronic media must be expressly approved by Graphicstudio.