|
FOREWORD
To mark the first anniversary of the Koishikawa Annex, the University Museum, the University of Tokyo and the Asahi Shinbun are holding a special exhibition entitled "Microcosmographia-Mark Dion's 'Chamber of Curiosities'". ln recent years, artists and museums in various parts of Europe and America have been collaborating in a large-scale projects involving the creation of hitherto unfamiliar types of installations. Mark Dion, an artist born in America in 1961 and active chiefly in New York, has achieved prominence in an international setting as a pioneer of this type of experimental joint work. His activities extend on a global scale, the artist personally visiting spots in various parts of the world that are of social or historical interest, or present unique natural features - the rain forests of the Amazon, the ancient mountain ranges of southern and northern Europe, historical structures such as the Villa Medici in Rome, the canals of Venice, the Thames river in London - where he carries out his own species of "field hunting"- anthropological, archeological, zoological, botanical and so on - then uses the historical materials, natural specimens, trash and all kinds of other natural objects, human artifacts, and even forgeries collected there in order to compose small universes in which truth and fiction are mingled via a unique method that has won a wide response among the public and art critics for the way it imitates the classical methodology of the natural sciences while tying it up with a collaborative product of modern art; it is a method that is at once seriously intellectual and skillfully strategic, that presents a drama for inspection while inviting to the fun of participation. The present exhibition, taking The University of Tokyo as its field of investigation and with the collaboration of a museum technology seminar consisting of undergraduates, postgraduates and members from outside the university (organized by Yoshiaki Nishino) assembles large quantities of academic specimens, scientific waste and ordinary trash from various parts of the university. the whole highly varied assemblage of "objects" being installed, in the space afforded by the Koishikawa Annex, a Meiji-era structure officially designated as an Important Cultural Property, as Mark Dion's version of a "chamber of curiosities." The presentation of this outcome of a joint experiment by artist and university museum represents a timely attempt to arouse interest in the borderline area between "art" and "science". The original idea for the project came from a proposal for Dion exhibition on the theme of "Ecology and Art" put forward by Philip Morris K.K., long actively engaged in programs for the benefit of society, and Curator Takayo Iida. The forward-looking nature of this proposal attracted the attention of the University Museum, the University of Tokyo and the Asahi Shinbun, resulting in the decision to organize for the first time in Japan an event presenting the work of the artist Dion on an adequate scale. The resulting project, we feel, has proved highly significant combining as it does the role of the artist with those of museum, achieving realization of an exhibition.We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those whose cooperation has made possible the holding of the exhibition.
December, 2002 The presentation of this exhibition at Koishikawa Annex, |