Published by Aspen Art Press/The Hammer Museum. Text by Douglas Fogle, Peter Eleey, Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Yasmil Raymond.
Since 1986, Dutch artist Mark Manders (born 1968) has been developing an ongoing project titled Self-Portrait as a Building. Taking the form of sculptures, installations, drawings and projections, these works map Manders' artistic persona through the conceptual model of a built edifice, in the fashion of the Renaissance memory theater. Inspired by writings on this subject and by other literature, Manders' earliest works in this project were primarily written, but over time, Manders found ways to deploy everyday three-dimensional objects--epoxy figures, animals, teabags, pencils, household furniture--to build a portrait of his own mind as an architectural space. As the artist explains, "this imaginary building, being composed of discrete objects, can shrink or expand at any moment. In this building, all words created by mankind are on hand." This publication accompanies the first North American touring exhibition of Manders' work.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Stephan Berg, Solveig Øvstebo, Philippe Van Cauteren, Mirjam Varadinis. Text by Stephan Berg, Douglas Fogle, Mark Manders, Mirjam Varadinis.
Dutch artist Mark Manders, born in 1968, has been devising sculptural installations since the late 1980s and exhibiting them as a fragmented self-portrait in the form of imaginary rooms. A veteran of solo exhibitions at such respected American venues as The Drawing Center in New York, the Berkeley Art Museum and The Art Institute of Chicago, he has established himself as one of the most distinctive and independent artists on today’s international sculpture scene. Beginning with the exemplary piece "Self-Portrait as a Building," created in 1986, Manders’ entire oeuvre can be understood as a large-scale attempt to translate his own existence and development into wordless, associative memory spaces. Chimneys, brick walls, oversized model rats, tables, chairs, newspapers and a plethora of small, personal objects are tweaked in scale and amassed as “still lives with broken moments.” This is the most significant appraisal of his work to date.
Published by Art Gallery of York University. Essay by Laura Hoptman. Foreword by Loretta Yarlow. Interview by Marije Langelaar.
At once a personal narrative and an encyclopedic gathering of material, Dutch artist Mark Manders' "Self-Portrait" began its life as a building in 1986. Since then, Manders has exhibited fragments of the project, an array of created and found objects, furniture, sculpture and drawings, keeping it in constant flux, changing its order with each showing.
The Absence of Mark Manders
Mark Manders: Singing Sailors