Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to nature’s underworld invites visitors on a voyage of discovery into the depths of our threatened natural world through large-scale painted and sculptural works. This exhibition is the first two-person show of these artists, who share an ongoing and urgent concern for our global environmental and ecological well-being.

Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman have, for decades, been addressing humankind’s strained relationship with the environment and its vast ecological consequences. Although working in different media, Dion and Rockman engage similar approaches and strategies, informed by intensive research and fieldwork, borrowing from scientific methodology and models, and using allegory, dark humor, and references to popular culture. Both artists employ methods of display found in museums of art and natural history—institutions of alleged authority and objectivity—which they slyly subvert in order to interrogate how audiences have traditionally experienced the environment within constructed spaces. Uniting some twenty-five sculptures and paintings by both artists as well as selected works on paper and a major new collaborative piece, this exhibition will offer an absorbing journey into the depths of the threatened natural world.

Together, Dion and Rockman have embarked on tropical expeditions; published dialogues; and co-edited Concrete Jungle, the pioneering 1996 book about anthropogenic ecosystems. Thus, Journey to Nature’s Underworld is not just evidence of their shared psyche, but it is also a manifestation of a long and fruitful friendship.

Mark Dion is a conceptual artist whose works have been shown at numerous institutions, including the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018), the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (2017), and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004), among others. His awards include the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001), The Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucida Art Award (2008). He has created large-scale public projects internationally, including at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, and at the Bienal de Montevideo in Uruguay. He is a graduate of the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, the School of Visual Arts, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. He is currently the co-director of Mildred’s Lane, an innovative visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania.

Alexis Rockman is a cinematic oil painter who has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2022), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2010), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1990). His work is held in numerous collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1987) and Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence (2008) awards. Rockman is a graduate of the Art Students League, Rhode Island School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts, New York.