Mark Dion: South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit
October 27, 2006 – January 14, 2007
New Work Gallery

Mark Dion isinternationally known for research-intensive works that explore the common ground between art, science, history, and archeology. Dion’s project for MAM is a two-part installation that focuses on our local natural surroundings. Dion will create a fictitious herbarium – a book of pressed seaweed specimens – supposedly assembled by 19 th-century botanist and diplomat Henry Perrine, whose pioneering work on South Florida’s biodiversity was destroyed in a raid during the Seminole Wars. The installation will also feature the vehicle and accoutrements of the South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit, an imaginary environmental agency that swoops into vulnerable natural habitats to save threatened plants and animals.

Mark Dion is organized by Miami Art Museum and curated by Assistant Curator René Morales as part of New Work, a series of projects by leading contemporary artists. The exhibition is supported in part by the Funding Arts Network, Inc.