Mark Manders

Mark Manders (1968, lives and works in Ronse, BE) was trained at the Grafische School and the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, both in Arnhem, Netherlands. Since 1986 Manders has been working on the ongoing project Self-Portrait as a Building. The idea for this monumental, self-searching project took root when the artist created Inhabited for a Survey (First Floor Plan from Self-Portrait as a Building) (1986) – a fictional floor plan – formed by writing implements that were on Manders’ desk at the time of the sculpture’s creation. By continually recycling, modifying, and creating new arrangements of favoured configurations and objects – human figures, animals, furniture, and architectural elements – Manders expands the limits of this decades-long conceptual self-portrait.

Recent solo exhibitions of Mark Manders include The Absence of Mark Manders, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2021); Michaël Borremans & Mark Manders: Double Silence, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2020-2021). The Absence of Mark Manders, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands (2020); Silent Studio, Kistefos Museum, Norway (2020). Other solo exhibitions include Mark Manders: Parallel Occurrences/Documented Assignments (Hammer Museum, Aspen Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Dallas Museum of Art, 2010-2012); Two Interconnected Houses, La Casa Luis Barragân, Mexico City (2011); The Absence of Mark Manders, which opened at Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (2007), and travelled to S.M.A.K., Ghent, Kunsthaus Zurich, and to Bergen Kunsthall, Norway (2009); Art Institute of Chicago and Renaissance Society, Chicago (2003). Manders represented the Netherlands at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.