The 2019 Bobbie and Mike Wilsey Distinguished Lecture

Following over a year of investigation and collaboration with Stanford students and researchers, artist Mark Dion revealed The Melancholy Museum: Love, Death and Mourning at Stanford at the Cantor Arts Center. The installation presents over 700 objects associated with the Stanford family assembled in cabinets reminiscent of the great cabinets of curiosities in art history and of Victorian mourning cabinets.

In this presentation, Dion discusses his Stanford project, its relationship to installations he has created at other universities, and many of the discoveries he made while working with the Stanford collections. Dion’s innovative approach straddles art, archaeology, history, and scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects. His installation challenges us to question distinctions between “objective” scientific methods and “subjective” influences.

To RSVP please visit:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-university-as-wunderkammer-tickets-75959407633