This week: We talk to artist Mark Dion, about social practice, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, cabinets of curiosity. The word “taxonomy” is bandied about at great length.

Mark Dion was born in 1961 in Massachusetts; he lives and works in Pennsylvania.

Dion is known for making art out of fieldwork, incorporating elements of biology, archaeology, ethnography, and the history of science, and applying to his artwork methodologies generally used for pure science. Traveling the world and collaborating with a wide range of scientists, artists, and museums, Dion has excavated ancient and modern artifacts from the banks of the Thames in London, established a marine life laboratory using specimens from New York’s Chinatown, and created a contemporary cabinet of curiosities exploring natural and philosophical hierarchies.

His approach emphasizes illustration and accuracy but is charged with a biting undertone. Dion has a longstanding interest in exploring how ideas about natural history are visualized and how they circulate in society. Dion’s work has been presented at many U.S. and international museums and galleries, including solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; and Deutsches Museum, Bonn. Dion has been commissioned to create works for Aldrich Museum of Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut; the Tate Gallery, London; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Polaroids from the Sky at The Museum in a Shoebox

If you’re a fan of The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, you should definitely visit the website for the Museum in a Shoebox.

Located at 15 Old Street in Old Town, the Museum in a Shoebox currently features Polaroids from the Sky: Clouds through the Ages, described as a major exhibition presenting the science and history of the skies. From the Museum’s website:

“The exhibition also shows how skies have been depicted in art and literature. There are a lot of old paintings with golden frames on display. For over a year, the Museum has collected random polaroids picturing the sky. So far, the collection consists of more than 16 000 polaroids, which are all on display in the great exhibition hall.”

Concurrently, the Museum is presenting Cardboard Seasons by Japanese animation artist Satoshi Nakashima, who creates two dimensional landscapes out of discarded cardboard. Prior to this, the Museum featured the popup architectural miniatures of artist Johanna Bruce.

Founded/created by the Swedish architect and artist Kristina Dalberg, the Museum in a Shoebox, its website notes, “is a museum of contemporary art, architecture and design. It presents both real and imaginary works by real and imaginary artists, thus blurring the line between fact and fiction.”

Indeed, the Shoebox is just like most other museums–better, even. Designed by architect Aleksandr Kuznetsov (see what you come up with when you Google his name), the Museum has a gift shop, a restaurant, a large exhibition space and the gallery in a shoebox (a “smaller gallery for small exhibitions”) plus a theater, a library, an auditorium and 10 seminar rooms.

The Museum in a Shoebox had its grand opening last month, with 5000 people in attendance. Cupcakes were served.

You can also check out the Museum in Shoebox on Facebook here. (Via Dezeen).

Guided tours offered in 53 different languages (including Esperanto)

Enjoy the Museum's Summer Pavilion

Festive shots from the Museum's Gala Opening

Cardboard Seasons on display at the Museum in a Shoebox

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