Happy to spend my Sunday at Whitechapel Gallery. My luck was that Mark Dion, American artist, had a big exhibition in a part of the gallery.
Dion’s installations, sculptures and works on paper explore natural history and its institutions including the language and imagery used to identify species, the uncanny quality of natural history museums displays; and nature in popular culture. Inspired by cinema as well as Surrealism and Minimalism, Dion’s tableaux also draw on his expeditions.
I was especially excited about exploring Bureau of the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy, 2005 and Tate Thames Dig, 1999.
I didn’t know about him before, but some of his work seems so familiar with my ideas; like working with a catalogue of element and surrealism. I also had a more personal experience while watching his stuff; one thing was my production design trained sister and her carpenter/artist husband. They build, restore and design exclusively with recycled materials; found in flea markets, dumps and in nature.
Another thing was the association I got to my fathers “green cabinet”(he is a natural scientist), which has attracted the curiosity of my since I was a child. A metal pot with coins from all over the world, heads of dulls found in the ocean, pictures of kids and other family members, skeletons of animals. I could make a mini Mark Dion project out of this cabinet.
I bought a small book about the Bureau of the Center for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy.
Bureau of the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy, 2005:
Tate Thames Dig, 1999:
In another exhibition I saw at the gallery was: itself Collection The Upset Buck
Among others I found a painting of Francis Alÿs, one of the artists I mention in my Research Paper.
This display of works by 28 major artists examines how we project our identity through our appearances and consumer choices, ultimately shaping our sense of self in relation to society.
A small painting hangs on a yellow patterned wall. The canvas is only half rolled out on its stretcher, and a dog, an upturned chair and a spilt bucket are visible. This enigmatic work by Francis Alÿs (b. 1959, Belgium) lends its title to the exhibition, which considers the question what do our possessions say about us?
Artists are in a unique position to prompt us to reconsider the use and value of objects. Alÿs examines and disrupts the conventions of domestic decoration and decorum, while Rayyane Tabet (b. 1983, Lebanon) takes a simple yet significant object, a suitcase, which he encases in concrete for posterity.