TWO QUESTIONS FOR MARK DION

April 14, 2020

Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, normal life has been shattered. We want to stay in touch with our artists and keep communicating with them and about them. That's the reason bürobasel launched the "Two Questions"-series, asking our artists two straight-forward questions, starting with Mark Dion.

1. Where are you?

A little more then a year ago my wife, the artist Dana Sherwood, our young son and I left New York City. After a long time in the city, we tired of cockroaches, parking tickets, rigaton at 3:00am and hour long subway commutes. So we bought an 1840’s Carpenter Gothic house in good condition with a serious garden and tree collection. It is not a large property but it is isolated and lovely. We are about two and half hours north of Manhattan not far from the town of Hudson.

The house is large enough to allow Dana a painting studio and a studio and archive room for myself where I keep and sort my collections.

2. What are you currently working on?

One of the consequences of our current situation is that most of my projects have been postponed. I had been planning an exhibition in Paris originally scheduled to open April 4th and featuring a new series of larger drawings. While drawing is a critical aspect of my practice, I have rarely made drawings of a large scale. So making big drawings has been something fresh and exciting for me. Making large more significant drawings allows for a very different approach to information. So I am working on some of these larger drawings now that I have little time and my headspace is focused on this process.

I am also working hard to entertain and wrangle my three year old son. Since all schools have been suspended, Fairfield is home all day. He has the uncanny ability to make even most basic tasks impossible.