Mark Dion, “Curator’s Office”

Artist Mark Dion carefully crafted a narrative about an imaginary staff person—Dr. Barton Kestle, who may have run afoul of the U.S. government during the height of the Cold War—to inform the creative of the installation piece, Curator’s Office. Working within the language of museological and scientific display, Dion calls into question the acts of collecting and exhibiting, thereby interrogating their significance to culture, history, and our environment. In this way, Curator’s Office illustrates a “period room” by highlighting the re-creation of a historical moment through the curation and display of objects within an interior space.