De-constructing Collections: Artistic interventions and strategies in museums

Following several short residencies by Mark Dion, Delfina Foundation hosts an afternoon of conversations and readings that takes as a starting point Dion’s long standing interest in examining the way museums construct knowledge through their objects and collections. The afternoon will explore his, and other, contemporary artistic and curatorial strategies to intervene in and interpret collections.

Speakers include Viktor Wynd and Roel Arkesteijn, plus readings from Mark Dion’s new book, The Incomplete Writings Of Mark Dion – Selected Interviews, Fragments And Miscellany edited by Roel Arkesteijn.

BIOGRAPHIES

Mark Dion is an American conceptual artist best known for his use of scientific presentations in his installations. He is currently a mentor at Columbia University in New York and co-director of Mildred’s Lane, a visual art education and residency program in Pennsylvania. Mark’s work has been exhibited at dOCUMENTA 13, MoMA PS, Guggenheim Bilbao, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Tate, and MOMA. Mark was a former resident at Delfina Studios in London, the predecessor organisation to Delfina Foundation.

Viktor Wynd is an artist working in the field of relational aesthetics, a ‘pataphysicist, writer, curator, collector, dealer, dilettante, naturalist and antiquarian but perhaps best known as one of London’s most innovative impresarios through his role as founder, and Chancellor of interdisciplinary art movement The Last Tuesday Society – an experiment in Relational Aesthetics; he has put on over 500 literary salons, curated over forty art exhibitions at his eponymous art gallery, séances, workshops and of course his parties that regularly attract in excess of 3000 guests. When not on collecting exhibitions worldwide he lives between London & Norfolk with his three Jackdaws Nancy, Perdita & Mortimer tending to his ever growing collection of plants, tropical fish and stones.

Roel Arkesteijn is a curator and author interested in forms of artistic engagement and activism. Since 2008 he has been curator of contemporary art at Museum Het Domein in Sittard, where he draws attention to artists who deal with social or political issues, are interested in gender questions, function as bridge-builders between different cultures, or actively engage in ecological matters. Arkesteijn completed his studies in art history at Leiden University in 1999 with a thesis on the reception of Joseph Beuys in the Netherlands. Since that time he has worked as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Arnhem (now Museum Arnhem), the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and at GEM, museum of contemporary art, in The Hague. In recent years Arkesteijn has regularly served as visiting lecturer at the Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen, the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe and at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent.