Mark Dion: Excavations: La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles
Current exhibition
Installation Views
Press release
La Brea Tar Pits, one of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC), presents a solo exhibition by contemporary artist Mark Dion, as part of the Getty initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide. Dion’s immersive, uncanny installation 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. This exhibition came to fruition as a result of an extended residency at the Tar Pits, where 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.
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.
PST ART is Southern California’s landmark arts event, presented by the Getty Foundation. Excavations is one of two groundbreaking exhibits hosted by NHMLAC, joining more than 60 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region which all explore 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.
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.
PST ART is Southern California’s landmark arts event, presented by the Getty Foundation. Excavations is one of two groundbreaking exhibits hosted by NHMLAC, joining more than 60 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region which all explore 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.
