Mark Dion

“I’m not one of these artists who is spending a lot of time imagining a better ecological future. I’m more the kind of artist who is holding up a mirror to the present.” 

Mark Dion

Neukom Vivarium is a hybrid work of sculpture, architecture, environmental education and horticulture that connects art and science. Sited at the corner of Elliott Avenue and Broad Street, it features a sixty-foot-long “nurse log” in an eighty-foot-long custom-designed greenhouse. Set on a slab under the glass roof of the greenhouse, the log has been removed from the forest ecosystem and now inhabits an art system. Its ongoing decay and renewal represent nature as a complex system of cycles and processes. Visitors observe life forms within the log using magnifying glasses supplied in a cabinet designed by the artist. Illustrations of potential log inhabitants-bacteria, fungi, lichen, plants, and insects-decorate blue and white tiles that function as a field guide, assisting visitors’ identification of “specimens.”  Neukom Vivarium is the artist’s first permanent public art work in the United States. – Seattle Art Museum

Neukom Vivarium (2006

Vivarium at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, Washington. Client: Owen Richards Architects. © Benjamin Benschneider All Rights Reserved. Usage may be arranged by contacting Benjamin Benschneider Photography. E-mail: bbenschneider@comcast.net or phone 206-789-5973
SAM Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, Washington photographed 2007_0725 © Benjamin Benschneider All Rights Reserved, usage rights may be arranged by contactin Benjamin Benschneider Photography, email: bbenschneider@comcast.net or phone, 206-789-5973

Learn more about Neukom Vivarium:

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s4/mark-dion-in-ecology-segment/

Artist Website: https://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/34-mark-dion/