General Info
Mark Dion’s immersive, uncanny installation at La Brea Tar Pits, Excavations, evokes a behind-the-scenes museum space, displaying new work alongside early museum murals, dioramas, and maquettes of Ice Age mammals in a playful, irreverent presentation in keeping with his meticulous yet mischievous approach. During an extended residency at the Tar Pits, Dion assisted with excavations, sorted microfossils, shadowed a taxidermist at the Natural History Museum, explored collections and archives, and interviewed researchers, educators, and floor staff to create this installation.
Dion’s 10-foot-long sculpture of a fossil pack rat skeleton stands atop a mix of natural and cultural detritus from the Tar Pits and the Hancock Park neighborhood. Additionally, six new drawings by Dion of mammal skeletons commonly found in the Tar Pits—artworks labeled with the names of locally important scientists, artists, historical figures, and landmarks—further blend artifice and reality, belying Dion’s critical and satirical approach to museum didactics. A new field guide to Hancock Park published in conjunction with the exhibition highlights the flora and fauna of the site, as well as the Tar Pits’ unparalleled cultural and scientific significance.
Excavations is one of two groundbreaking exhibits hosted by NHMLAC combining art and science for this year’s PST ART event. The other is Reframing Dioramas: The Art of Preserving Wilderness at the Natural History Museum.
About PST ART: Art & Science Collide
Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024 with more than 60 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to Indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world. Art & Science Collide follows Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (September 2017–January 2018), which presented a paradigm-shifting examination of Latin American and Latinx art, and Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980 (October 2011–March 2012), which rewrote the history of the birth and impact of the L.A. art scene. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit: pst.art.
