Conceptual artist Mark Dion will present tonight's Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist Lecture at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 15. The lecture is also available via Zoom at https://unl.zoom.us/j/93411095392
Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge and the natural world. Appropriating archaeological, field ecology and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between “objective” (“rational”) scientific methods and “subjective” (“irrational”) influences.
Dion also frequently collaborates with museums of natural history, aquariums, zoos and other institutions mandated to produce public knowledge on the topic of nature. By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Dion questions the objectivity and authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society, tracking how pseudo-science, social agendas and ideology creep into public discourse and knowledge production.
He is the co-director of Mildred's Land an innovative visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania.
For more than two decades, Dion has worked in the public realm in a wide range of scales, from architecture projects to print interventions in newspapers. Some of his most recent large scale pubic projects include "The Amateur Ornithologist Clubhouse," a Captain Nemo-like interior constructed in a vast gas tank in Essen, Germany; and "Den," a large scale folly in Norway's mountainous landscape that features a massive sculpture of a sleeping bear in a cave, resting on a hill of material culture form the neolithic to the present. Dion has also produced large-scale, permanent commissions for Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany; the Montevideo Biannale in Uruguay; The Rose Art Museum, Johns Hopkins University; the city of Stavoren, Holland; and the Port of Los Angeles.
Dion received a B.F.A. and an honorary doctorate from the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School in Connecticut, and attended the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program.
The remaining lecture in the series is:
• Nov. 3: Brad Kahlhamer, painting (virtual). Kahlhamer lives and works in New York City. His work has been collected by institutions such as the Denver Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.
The School of Art, Art History & Design’s Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series brings notable artists, scholars and designers to Nebraska each semester to enhance the education of students.
Underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment with additional support from other sources, the series enriches the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design. Each visiting artist or scholar spends one to three days on campus to meet with classes, participate in critiques and give demonstrations.
For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History & Design at (402) 472-5522 or e-mail schoolaahd@unl.edu.
Face masks are currently required indoors on campus. (For the latest information on Covid-19 protocols, visit the University of Nebraska–Lincoln website at https://covid19.unl.edu.)