Mark Manders

Mark Manders (born 1968) is a Dutch artist. He first studied graphic design; but, then changed his mind and decided to be a writer but with objects instead of words. Therein he became very interested in the paralleled evolution of humans and objects.

Composition with Blue

Manders's body of work consists mainly of installations, drawings, sculptures and short films.[1] Typical of his work is the arrangement of random objects, such as tables, chairs, light bulbs, blankets and dead animals. He is best known for his rough-hewn clay sculptures.[2]

Biography

Born in Volkel in Uden, Manders took his art studies at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem, now ArtEZ Academy of art & design, from 1988 to 1992. In 1988 he started his own studio in Arnhem. From 2007 to 2013 he lived and worked in Ronse in Belgium.[3]

In 1992 he received the second prize at the Dutch Prix de Rome in the category Art & Public Space. In 2010 he was awarded the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Art. At the 55th Venice Biennale he exhibited the installation "Room with Broken Sentence" in the Dutch pavilion.[3] Manders is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York City.[4]

Work

Self portrait as a building

Since 1986 Manders has been making Self-portrait as a building.[2] The first of this series of fictional architectural plans was Inhabited for a Survey, (First Floor Plan from Self Portrait of a Building) (1986), where the plan is drawn on the floor of the gallery using pencils, crayons and other markers.[5]

The fictional building represents a fictional artist, "Mark Manders", an alter-ego distinct from the artist Mark Manders.[5] This fictitious character is described by the artist as a, "Neurotic, sensitive individual who can only exist in an artificial world."[6] Each of his exhibitions includes an evolving floor plan of the self-portrait building along with various art works.[1]

Manders uses this architecture to drive his work and allow it to make the decisions, calling it a "machine", but at the same time bringing objects to a standstill as he develops these memory spaces. Despite creating this fictional space, he insists on using "real objects" in the "real world" to make his sculptures.

I don’t often show my work in the public domain, rather in museums where people choose to go to see art. But since 1991 I always test a work that I’ve just finished in a supermarket. I just imagine a new work there and I check if it can survive where it doesn’t have the label of an artwork. It is just a thing that someone placed in a supermarket. Now I am sure that all of my works can stand in that environment.” He often feels alien to the real world and its institutional art settings. He insists that his work stays the same throughout its exhibitions but gets re-contextualized each time it enters the "real world".[7]

Exhibitions
Fox / Mouse / Belt

Collection

Manders' work is held in the following public collection:

References
  1. Janet Koplos, "Mark Manders at Greene Naftali - New York," Art in America, April 2003.]
  2. Melissa Gronlund, "Mark Manders review," Frieze, Issue 100, June - August 2006.
  3. Mark Manders; male/Dutch, Belgian; sculptor, painter, installation artist, cinematographer, draftsman, publisher, at rkd.nl. Accessed 2017-01-10
  4. "Tanya Bonakdar Gallery artists page; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (New York)". 2017. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
  5. Irish Museum of Modern Art Archived 2007-11-20 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Jan van Adrichem, Jelle Bouwhuis, Mariette Dölle, Sculpture in Rotterdam, 010 Publishers, 2002, p60. ISBN 90-6450-482-2
  7. Mark Manders in 2013 interview, cited in: Dutch entry 2013, at mondriaanfonds.nl, 2013. Accessed 11.01.2017.
  8. Mark Manders at the Renaissance Society Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20080429185113/http://blog.cmoa.org/CI08/2008/02/mark-manders.php
  11. moma.org
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