LOS ANGELES, CA.- A worktable is strewn with paleontology tools and models, anatomical blackboard drawings of prehistoric animals wrap around the room, and at the center, crouches a larger-than-life glow-in-the-dark pack rat.

On view at La Brea Tar Pits for a year beginning September 15, 2024, the exhibition Mark Dion: Excavations is an immersive, uncanny installation of a behind-the-scenes museum space. Displaying new work alongside early museum murals, dioramas, and maquettes of Ice Age mammals, this playful, irreverent presentation is in keeping with Dion’s well-known meticulous yet mischievous approach.

The exhibition is centered around a 10-foot-long glow-in-the-dark sculpture of a fossil pack rat skeleton that stands atop a mix of natural and cultural detritus from the Tar Pits and the Hancock Park neighborhood. Six new drawings by Dion of mammal skeletons commonly found in the Tar Pits — artworks labeled with the names of locally important scientists, artists, historical figures, and landmarks — further blend artifice and reality, revealing Dion’s critical and satirical approach to museum didactics.

In preparation for the exhibition, Dion worked in residency at the Tar Pits, Dion assisting with excavations and sorting microfossils and interviewing researchers, educators, and floor staff. At the Natural History Museum, he shadowed a taxidermist and explored collections and archives.

Dion led the creation of an alternative “field guide” to La Brea Tar Pits, published in conjunction with the exhibition. The booklet highlights the site's flora and fauna, as well as the Tar Pits’ unparalleled cultural and scientific significance. It includes essays by La Brea Tar Pits scientists and an intriguing timeline of the area's natural and cultural history created by the artist.

Excavations is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST Art. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST Art: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST Art is presented by Getty. For more information about PST Art: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art. This exhibition is one of two groundbreaking exhibitions hosted by the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County for this year’s PST Art event. The other is Reframing Dioramas: The Art of Preserving Wilderness at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park.