ART
Mark Dion |
Written 30 January |
Tuesday 26 October, 11:00In Situ/Fabienne Leclerc, 75006 [map]Mark Dion
A World for the Spoiling, an exhibition at the In Situ/Fabienne Leclerc gallery, exhibits new installations and a large collection of drawings by
Mark Dion.
The Cabinet of Delight and Ruin — created with
Dana Sherwood — is a group of “pastries” presented in a pyramid and exhibited in an art deco glass display. Augmented by this jewel box, the resin replicas in sophisticated forms and attractive colours are made from 19th century jelly moulds. A closer look reveals a few inert insects, as if they were trapped by the refined and kitschy sweets. Vanity as a theme, which runs through the history of art, is hereby reinterpreted without use of the human skull, a commonplace to contemporary vanity. The work questions culture and class, savoir-faire and tradition, fact and fake, illusion and the elusive.
Another work, The Phantom Museum, is a curiosity box, different from earlier ones made by Dion because this piece includes no found objects. Having often collaborated with a variety of archaeological institutions and natural history Museums, the artist regularly borrowed items to include in his art, as well as from flea markets and other secondhand shops. If the curiosity box is a metaphor for and microcosmic portrayal of the museum and its collections, Dion also evokes our own collections of memories.
The Shooting Gallery is a sort of hybrid between curiosity box and carnival booth. Either dangerous or edible, the animals portrayed are the ones we hunt — deer, rabbit, duck — or those we want to eliminate, such as rats. Meanwhile the viewer can let out his destructive impulses and test his shooting skills.
Without moralizing and in an indirect way, these works are mirrors that reflect our illusions, beliefs, and a tendency to look toward the past rather than the future. Caught between utopia and disillusion, the entire exhibition is marked by melancholy, but it also reaffirms an art that is lucid, reflexive and deeply engaged.
N.P
