Hi to all and thanks to everyone who is following me on my humble blog. I haven't had a chance to scan in any new sketch, but I do have them ready for scanning. I wrote a short paper about an exhibition that I learned about in class last week, however, I didn't get a chance to use it for my class. Apparently I was supposed to hand it in as a hard copy rather than email, as most instructors would like. No problem, though. I quickly hand wrote a shorter version while in class and turned it in on time. So, here is the full typed version that I didn't use.
Feel free to research about this artist and dig on your own, as it is quite interesting.
The Tate Thames Dig took place in London, England in order to document its culture and industry. Mark Dion, the orchestrator of this dig and artist, and his team combed the shores of a river in Bankside and Millbank. They were waring protective gear using what Mark calls “scatter-gun” approach to search for items of all kinds. Due to the sites protected nature, as it is a conservation area, they could not dig deeper than six inches. They collected many reminisces of London, such as antiques, clay pipes, ouster shells, cattle teeth, toys, old shoes to a fragmented human shinbone. With advice from many experts on what to expect at the sites and techniques to use from archeologists, the team used a field-walking method to search the shores of the river.
Once the team gathered their findings they organized items in red bins, cardboard boxes and plastic clear bins with red and green lids, which were labeled, making sure to keep the contents of both sites separated. Cleaning of the items was done with brushes and water and then dried. Once the team finished cataloging the items they were placed in a large antique cabinet/chest, one side showing off Millbank and the other Bankside. Placement of items were meant to seem arbitrary, however, Mark placed objects of an antique nature alongside modern ones in order to give the audience free rain to interpret the objects in their own way. The installation was placed and acquired by the Tate Gallery.
Mark Dion is questioning the relationship of archeology and art, by using techniques from both fields to document, catalog and display the findings of a dig in a gallery. While there are many differences from what Mark has done and what archeologists do, one cannot help but find the similarities to both fields. In archeology items are placed in museums to help understand cultures from the past and yet what Mark has done is quite similar, but placed in a gallery instead. Mark is an artist with no professional background in archeology and what he has done is found an intersection to the two fields that questions what each does and what role they have in society.
Thanks for reading,
Josh
