ARTIST, CURATOR TO DISCUSS LOCAL PUBLIC ART PROJECT

An artist who will create a representation of an 18th-century cemetery near Ludington Library will join the curator of the public art project that includes his work for a talk in Carpenter Library on Thursday, Feb. 5. Artist Mark Dion and curator Denise Markonish will discuss the Main Line Art Center's "Past Presence: Contemporary Reflections on the Main Line" in Carpenter B21 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. The lecture, to be followed by a reception, is sponsored by the College's Center for Visual Culture.

"Past Presence" will present four large-scale outdoor installations, all newly commissioned by the Main Line Art Center, in locations around Lower Merion Township. The installations, created by Dion and artists Bob Braine, Kelly Kaczynski and Nari Ward, will all explore aspects of the area's history and natural environment. They will be on display April 24 through Oct. 22.

Dion is nationally known for installation pieces that investigate the taxonomic systems used by scientists to classify and describe the natural world. Many of his pieces have built on the typical elements of displays in museums of natural history. "My Glass Is Run," the piece he will create for "Past Presence," will explore the ways a community's relationship to the natural environment is mediated by focusing on the lives of scientists who have studied that environment. The installation will take the form of an "ideal cemetery" with headstones dedicated to celebrated naturalists — including Charles Wilson Peale, John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson — who have collected specimens and worked in Lower Merion.

The artists' proposals and other project-specific work will be on view at the Main Line Art Center from April 16 through May 16, 2004. For more information on this project, visit www.mainlineart.org or call the Main Line Art Center at 610-525-0272.

<<Back to Bryn Mawr Now 1/29/2004