UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Artist Mark Dion will present a lecture titled “Misadventures of a Contemporary Naturalist” at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, in the Palmer Museum of Art’s Lipton Auditorium on the University Park campus of Penn State. His work is featured in the multifaceted, cross-disciplinary exhibition “Plastic Entanglements: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials” on view at the museum through June 17.
Dion examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge and the natural world. The artist’s spectacular and often fantastical curiosity cabinets, modeled on Wunderkammen (or "cabinets of curiosities") of the 16th and 17th centuries, exalt atypical orderings of objects and specimens, including plastic and rubber sex toys masquerading as marine invertebrates.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Penn State School of Visual Arts John M. Anderson Endowed Lecture Series; Rock Ethics Institute; Department of Art History; Woskob Family Gallery; and the Friends of the Palmer Museum of Art.
Also on view at the Palmer Museum of Art this spring are “Pop at the Palmer,” Jan. 9 through May 13; and “Dox Thrash, Black Life, and the Carborundum Mezzotint,” Jan. 16 though May 20.
For more information on the Palmer Museum and a calendar of upcoming events, visit palmermuseum.psu.edu.
ABOUT THE PALMER
The Palmer Museum of Art on the Penn State University Park campus is a free-admission arts resource for the University and surrounding communities in central Pennsylvania. With a collection of 8,850 objects representing a variety of cultures and spanning centuries of art, the Palmer is the largest art museum between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Areas of strength include the museum’s collection of American art from the late eighteenth to the present, Old Master paintings, prints and photography, ceramics and studio glass, and a growing collection of modern and contemporary art. The museum presents ten exhibitions each year and, with eleven galleries, a print-study room, 150-seat auditorium, and outdoor sculpture garden, the Palmer Museum of Art is the leading cultural resource for the region.
Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays and some holidays.
The Palmer Museum of Art receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.