COPYRIGHT MARK DION STUDIO, COURTESY: TANYA BONAKDAR GALLERY, IMAGE: ART EVANS, ©STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE, WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS.
From the New York Times to the New Yorker, the exhibition Phantoms of the Clark Expedition is garnering major attention in Manhattan.
Curated by Lisa Corrin, the Block Museum’s Ellen Philips Katz Director, Phantoms is an installation by the artist Mark Dion that reflects on the history of exploration, specifically an expedition to Northern China undertaken more than 100 years ago by the art collector and philanthropist Sterling Clark. The project is organized by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
Housed in the Explorer’s Club, the New York office of the Clark, Phantoms features Dion’s reinterpretations of objects similar to those typically used on expeditions or found in natural history museums. After studying records and artifacts from Clark’s trip, Dion used his signature red and blue pencils to reinterpret the items in a series of drawings. The drawings were then translated into unpainted papier-mâché sculptures which have been arranged in the Explorer’s Club Trophy Room, among artifacts and specimens collected by the Club’s members on travels around the world.
Phantoms of the Clark Expedition runs through Friday, August 3 at the Explorer’s Club, 46 East 70th Street in New York.
Read the New York Times article about Mark Dion and Phantoms.
Read the review in the New York Times.
Read the review in the New Yorker.
Read the Town & Country article about the installation. (pdf)
