Artist: Mark Dion (American, born 1961, New Bedford, Massachusetts)
Title: Chart 35, Anatomy of Global Warming
Date: 2021
Medium: Screenprint on Iris book cloth, stained maple dowels, screenprint on paper
Dimensions: 32 ¾ x 21.5 x ⅞ inches
Credit Line: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Block Board of Advisors Endowment Fund purchase, 2025.10.1

Mark Dion is a conceptual artist known for his collaborative projects with museums of natural history, aquariums, and zoos, institutions that structure public knowledge of the natural environment. In Chart 35, Anatomy of Global Warming, Dion playfully and subversively mimics conventional teaching methodologies, using the visual language of scientific diagramming to question the ways dominant ideologies shape our understanding of climate change.

Printed in white ink on black Iris book cloth, Chart 35 takes the form of an anatomical poster of a human skeleton. But instead of labeling bones with scientific names, Dion uses the space to list current and future effects of global warming:
Extinctions on land and in seas. Gargantuan fires. Zoonotic diseases. 99% of coral reefs die. Civilization stressed to the point of collapse.

Chart 35, Anatomy of Global Warming [detail]

This list labeling the skeleton’s structure reflects Dion’s belief that humanity cannot be separated from nature—and that the interior of the human body itself embodies the effects of climate change. The image calls attention to how educational tools like anatomy diagrams often present knowledge as objective or neutral, and thus encourage memorization without questioning from the learner. Dion uses this recognizable format to propose an alternative: a human body labeled with ecological catastrophe, insisting that our relationship with the planet is both personal and political.

Chart 35 began as a drawing, part of a group of “mischievous infographic meditations” that Dion has created in recent years. It follows a lineage of his works that appropriate scientific and museological systems of display to expose how knowledge is constructed and circulated. Earlier drawings such as Anatomy Lesson (2020) and Anatomy of Extinction (2021) laid the groundwork for this print. In those projects, as in Chart 35, Dion uses the body as a site to map environmental collapse.

This editioned print was produced at Graphicstudio in Tampa, Florida, with master printer Tom Pruitt. Other editions are held in public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Art and the Everson Museum of Art.

Chart 35, Anatomy of Global Warming strengthens The Block’s collection of contemporary prints, especially those addressing themes of climate change, science pedagogy, and institutional critique. It speaks directly to the work of artists already in the collection—including Claire Pentecost’s A Call to Farms, Lorna Simpson’s III (Three Wishbones in a Wood Box), Eric Avery’s Emerging Infectious Diseases, and LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Flint is Family. Like these artists, Dion makes visible the hidden structures—educational, environmental, bureaucratic—that shape our lived experience.

This work also builds on Dion’s long-standing connection to Chicago. From 1992 to 1993, as part of Culture in Action—a public art program organized by Sculpture Chicago—Dion collaborated with fourteen high school students under the name Chicago Urban Ecology Action Group. Together, they created sculptures, videos, and environmental interventions across the city. Dion’s commitment to collaborative learning and critical pedagogy makes Chart 35 not only a valuable visual statement but a useful teaching tool.

At Northwestern, Chart 35 can support a wide range of teaching and research—from Environmental Policy and Culture, to Philosophy courses on climate ethics, to the Science in Human Culture program. Even courses in education, such as Elementary Science Methods and Content, can use the print to explore how artistic practices might challenge or reimagine scientific instruction. In his 2000 manifesto For Artists Working With or About the Living World, Dion writes:

In Chart 35, that relationship becomes literally anatomical. The consequences of environmental degradation aren’t just happening out there—they’re written into our bodies, and into the systems we use to understand the world around us.

–Contributed by Llewyn Blossfeld, Curatorial Associate

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

• Dion, Mark, Lisa G Corrin, Miwon Kwon, and Norman Bryson. “Mark Dion.” London: Phaidon Press, 1997. 
• Art21. “Mark Dion in ‘Ecology.’” 2007. Accessed February 7th, 2025. https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s4/mark-dion-in-ecology-segment/ 
• Mark Dion. “Some Notes Toward a Manifesto For Artists Working With or About the Living World.” in Mark Dion : Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist. Edited by Lucy Flint-Gohlke. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2017. Page 85 
• Dion, Mark and Mary Jane Jacob. “On Culture in Action.” in Mark Dion : Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist. Edited by Lucy Flint-Gohlke. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2017. 
• Art21. “Mark Dion.” 2019. Accessed January 31st, 2025. https://art21.org/artist/mark-dion/ 
• Artsy. “Mark Dion | Anatomy Lesson (2020) | Available for Sale | Artsy.” 2020. Accessed February 13th, 2025. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/mark-dion-anatomy-lesson 
• Artsy. “Mark Dion | Anatomy of Extinction (2021) | Artsy.” 2021. Accessed February 13th, 2025. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/mark-dion-anatomy-of-extinction 
• Saskia Neuman Gallery. “Systema Naturae.” 2023. Accessed February 3rd, 2025. https://www.saskianeumangallery.com/exhibitions/systema-naturae 
• Nagel Draxler Galerie. “Mark Dion – Anatomy of Melancholy.” 2024. Accessed February 6th, 2025. 
• Mildred’s Lane. “Mark Dion: From the Collection of Grey Rabbit Dion Puett.” 2025. Accessed January 30th, 2025. https://mildredslane.org/mildredslaneblog/2025/1/16/mark-dion-works-on-paper 
• Museum of Modern Art. “Mark Dion.” 2025. Accessed February 3rd, 2025. https://www.moma.org/artists/27427 
• Mark Dion. “Artist’s Questionnaire” (Document in file, 2025). 
• Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. “Mark Dion.” Accessed February 6th, 2025. https://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/34-mark-dion/