The Garden of Earthly Delights and A Sentimental Education with Dana Sherwood

Artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood often take inspiration from the literature, visual arts, and scientific practices of the 19th century, particularly the period’s fascination with natural history. Indeed, these subjects are a frequent focus of the artists’ critical and often mischievous work. Similarly rooted in the artistic styles and scientific thought of the 19th century, the unique architecture and interiors of The Armour-Stiner Octagon House provide a rich environment for the artists’ interventions.

Perhaps better known for their individual artistic practices, Dion and Sherwood are frequent collaborators. One such collaboration, on view in the Collections Room of The Octagon House, is the series Confectionary Wonders. Building on the history of architectural follies and fanciful structures, as well as the excesses of lavish 19th century desert forms, the series is made up of a collection of colorful gelatin-like desserts. These visually delightful sculptures appear enticing – until a closer look at the sweets reveals the insect corpses embedded within them. Each of the decadent confections seems to have attracted flies, beetles, moths and butterflies to a sticky grave.

On the walls of the Collections Room, amid framed insects and examples of Victorian collecting practices, are a selection of paintings by Dana Sherwood. Encompassing a range of nearly ten years of her practice, the paintings depict scenes of animals, insects, plants, and women interacting with confectionery. In Sherwood’s work, cake symbolizes liminal space – a time outside of ordinary time when anything can happen. It denotes wonder, joy and magic. Several of the works seen here are inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, published in the same decade the Octagon House was built. Regarding Alice as a modern update on the myth of Persephone, Sherwood imagines her navigating the underworld, using her curiosity and instinct to lead her through a strange realm where nothing is as it seems.

Around the corner from the Collections Room is a child’s bedroom. Mark Dion has transformed this space into a nursery classroom populated by blackboards, didactic charts, and infographics. While this type of chart was a familiar teaching tool in the 19th century, these new works by Dion have a less than straightforward relationship to information. Many of the works offer satirical commentary about our current culture of corruption and power. The traditional form has been hijacked to provide a critical perspective on systems of knowledge production and the apparatus of “truth.”

While the exhibition is rooted in the period of The Octagon House’s construction and heyday, Dion and Sherwood’s interventions reflect on our current social environment: be that Sherwood’s meditations on the rejuvenating power of our connection to the natural world or Dion’s pessimistic and humorous observations on the culture of corruption.