My Most Priceless Treasure (unicorn), 2004

As a conceptual artist, Mark Dion has received acclaim for his incorporation of scientific presentations throughout his installations as a means of challenging pre-existing notions of history, the natural world and knowledge and the way it has previously been presented. For his Rescue Archaeology piece at the Museum of Modern Art, Dion excavated the construction site surrounding the museum’s extension, and amassed and presented a number of found objects such as pieces of old wallpaper, tiles and keys. The Curiosity Shop is another of Dion’s most notable works; the large-scale mixed media installation features an assortment of his own personal objects, collected over the years from ‘flea markets, yard sales and junk stores’. Of his exploration of existing museum ideologies and the accumulation of objects, Dion has stated that ‘The job of the artist is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention’.