Concerning Hunting, an exhibition of work by Season 4 artist Mark Dion, opens at Galleria Civica di Modena’s Palazzo Santa Margherita in Modena, Italy on February 1. The traveling exhibition expresses Dion’s interest in hunting in terms of the sensitivity of the hunter and the profound knowledge he has of nature. Dion’s work, writes curator Verena Gamper, is “entirely dedicated to the fascination of nature that turns man into a collector, a researcher and an adventurer. [His] installations, interventions, representations and photographs…appear most of all as a form of criticism of the careless and cruel relationship that man often has with nature.”
The exhibition includes five hunting blinds: The dandy hunter whose elegantly furnished blind is reminiscent of a noble hunting house; the librarian hunter who has put together his blind with maniacal care; the glutton hunter who shoots (and kills) with food in mind–game hangs from his ceiling and his walls are papered with nude images; and The Ruin, a blind where everything is abandoned or broken. The exhibition also includes six felt portrayals of animal prey, and Men and Game, a series of around 100 photographs of hunting scenes from different times and places that comprise a large wall installation. See images in the online gallery.
Concerning Hunting is on view through April 26, and accompanied by a bilingual catalogue, featuring critical texts by Dieter Buchhart, Verena Gamper, Martin Henatsch, Angela Vettese and Jacob Wamberg.
