the marvelous museum

the marvelous museum is an exhibit of odds and ends, the forgotten, the lost and found objects from the Oakland Museum of California. Think of taxidermy, wooden crates, the spines of old books, a baby elephant, an invalid's wooden wheelchair, and more.

artist Mark Dion finds these objects from the museum's archives, recalling a cabinet of curiosities and the predecessors of the Oakland Museum of California, including a natural history museum, an art gallery and the oakland public museum.

since Dion is an installation artist, he also recalls the past and present by recreating curator's offices from three different time periods.


rubber stamps at a re-created curator's desk from the 1970s.


a modern day curator's office, re-created.


curator's desk from the turn of the 19th century.

for more information, go to the exhibit's page here.

there's also a book that accompanies this exhibition, which i really want to see! find it here on amazon, it's published by chronicle books.

photos taken by my awesome sister, anna.