Distributed January 14, 2002
For Immediate Release
News Service Contact: Mary Jo Curtis



January 26 through March 10

Mark Dion: New England Digs on exhibit at Bell Gallery

The David Winton Bell Gallery will host a new exhibition, Mark Dion: New England Digs, at the List Art Center Jan. 26 to March 10, 2002. Dion will discuss his work during an opening reception on Friday, Jan. 25, 2002, at 5:30 p.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — One man’s trash has been transformed into another’s art for a new exhibition at the David Winton Bell Gallery, Mark Dion: New England Digs, which will be presented Jan. 26 through March 10, 2002, at the List Art Center.

Dion will discuss his work during an opening reception set for 5:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, at the gallery. The exhibit has been organized by the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, Mass., in collaboration with the Bell Gallery, the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

ChestThe exhibit was culled from a series of pseudo-archaeological digs undertaken last spring in Providence, Brockton and New Bedford. Assisted by students from Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, Dion conducted excavations along the banks of the Seekonk River near Brown’s Marston Boat House, in New Bedford at the former site of O’Malley’s Tavern, and in Brockton at a portion of the Melrose Cemetery. Contemporary cultural artifacts – what some people call “garbage” – were collected, cleaned, categorized and ultimately organized for Dion’s New England Digs.

[The chest, right, holds artifacts from the New Bedford dig, part of Mark Dion: New England Digs, opening January 26 at the Bell Gallery. Photo: Bell Gallery]

The resulting exhibition has already been displayed at Brockton’s Fuller Museum of Art, where Boston Globe reviewer Joanne Silver credited the artist with “celebrat[ing] the beauty lurking within the everyday, the insignificant, the broken and forgotten remnants of people’s lives.” The exhibit is also scheduled for the University Gallery at UMass–Dartmouth during the summer of 2002.

Dion, a New Bedford native, has based his work on his strong ecological concerns and a multitude of interests that include ornithology, entomology, history, archaeology and museum practices. His work has been included in major international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale and the Carnegie International, as well in London’s Tate Modern Museum and New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

This exhibition is free and open to the public. The Bell Gallery is located in the List Art Center at 64 College St. and is open to the public 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, call (401) 863-2932.

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