For Mark Dion, architectural follies — Baroque idiosyncratic structures, water gardens and grottos — are a model for contemporary public art practice, forcing architecture and landscape design to extremes of innovative experimentation. Dion’s large-scale public projects include a Captain Nemo-like interior constructed in a gas tank in Essen, Germany, a fire escape-like vertical garden in London, and a large scale folly in Norway featuring a massive sculpture of a sleeping bear resting on a hill of material culture from the neolithic to the present. He is currently working with the architectural firm of James Corner Field Operations on the visual art programming and redesign of the Seattle Waterfront.



With support from the Institute for the Humanities, the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and the Museum Studies Program.



This lecture took place on September 29, 2011 as part of the University of Michigan School of Art & Design’s Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series. Established with the generous support of alumna Penny W. Stamps, the Speaker Series brings respected emerging and established artists/designers from a broad spectrum of media to the School to conduct a public lecture and engage with students, faculty, and the larger University and Ann Arbor communities.



All programs take place on Thursdays at 5:10 pm at the historic Michigan Theater, located at 603 E. Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor, and are free of charge and open to the public. For more information, please visit: http://art-design.umich.edu/stamps