“Waiting for the Extraordinary,” artist reception and Penny W. Stamps lecture by Mark Dion

Mark Dion talks about his new iteration of “Waiting for the Extraordinary” on view at the Institute for the Humanities through Oct 20. (Immediately following the lecture, the reception takes place at Institute for the Humanities, 202 S. Thayer) Inspired by the academic classifications invented by 18th-century Michigan Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward, this architecturally scaled installation presents a single room with thirteen plastic sculptures, each representing one of Woodward’s professorships. As viewers enter the darkened space and encounter these illuminated objects—reproduced using 3D imaging technology from original objects Dion found in departments and collections across the University of Michigan—they confront questions about the distinction between the rational and subjective in our construction of knowledge, as well as role of the museum and institutions that continue to determine it. This new iteration of Dion’s 2011 installation at U-M serves as an archive of the original, as part of the Institute for the Humanities’ Year of Archives and Futures, and in celebration of the U-M Bicentennial.