{"id":1079,"date":"2012-05-31T22:51:29","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T03:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2012-05-31T22:51:29","modified_gmt":"2012-06-01T03:51:29","slug":"mark-dion-at-the-explorers-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/31\/mark-dion-at-the-explorers-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Dion at the Explorers Club"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion at The Explorers Club<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The big draw of Mark Dion<\/a>\u2019s exhibition at the members-only, Upper East Side Explorers Club<\/a> is, unsurprisingly, the club itself.\u00a0 But Dion seems to have anticipated the distractions posed by the club\u2019s exclusivity and the exotic appeal of its artifact displays from around the world by offering an installation of all-white sculptures that literally contrasts its colorful surroundings.<\/p>\n

With his history of creating museum-like displays that question how we categorize information and pursue scientific enquiry, Dion seems like the perfect artist for the Clark Art Institute’s commission to commemorate the 100th<\/sup> anniversary of a publication by Singer Sewing Machine heir Robert Sterling Clark (whose brother\u2019s old residence now houses the club) documenting his 1908 specimen-gathering expedition to northern China.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion at The Explorers Club<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dion responded by crafting a catalogue of items representing those taken on the Clark expedition, including barrels and boxes of supplies, tools arranged carefully on a long table, a Chinese rock squirrel scaled up to eight times its normal size, a wild boar and a cooking fire.\u00a0 Sculpted in white celluclay (and white furry material for the squirrel), each item stands out as particularly unnatural amid the \u2018Trophy Room\u2019s\u2019 hunting lodge d\u00e9cor.<\/p>\n

The barrels recall Gary Simmons\u2019 white backwoods liquor brewing stills, both of which take objects out of context to question the context itself, while the huge squirrel is hard to take seriously, looking like a giant stuffed animal from the polar regions.\u00a0 Removed from their native locations and uses, Dion\u2019s whited-out objects are made unavoidably strange, and they resist absorption into a narrative of daring discovery.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Dion at The Explorers Club<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big draw of Mark Dion\u2019s exhibition at the members-only, Upper East Side Explorers Club is, unsurprisingly, the club itself.\u00a0 But Dion seems to have anticipated the distractions posed by the club\u2019s exclusivity and the exotic appeal of its artifact displays from around the world by offering an installation of all-white sculptures that literally contrasts … <\/p>\n

Read more “Mark Dion at the Explorers Club”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dont-miss","tag-mark-dion-explorers-club-sculpture-sterling-clark-installation-art-new-york-city-art-contemporary-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BDOD-hp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1089,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}