Mark Manders

Dutch artist Mark Manders’ first UK solo exhibition takes the form of an ambitious new commission for BALTIC. Short Sad Thoughts showcases work from Manders’ ongoing exploration Self-Portrait as a Building. This series of work evolves with each new exhibition. It is a project the artist has been working on since he was 18 years old.

For this show Manders has produced a number of major works in a diverse range of media. The key works for the new commission are a series of sculptural landscapes and portraits including Field Fragment, Room with Nocturnal City Scene and Staged Android. They may be regarded as three-dimensional photographs – some of them cropped by glass and walls. In Self-Portrait as a Building the world’s mobility is slowed down, like an instant photographic exposure - a place where the world’s lack of transparency becomes manageable.

Manders’ drawings, sculptures and installations offer a wordless story. He takes an everyday object and turns it into something compelling and, often, unfamiliar. His language consists of the arbitrary and the mundane; beds, blankets, tables, chairs, spoons, sponges, and effigies of dead animals. These items hold an aura as they are positioned within his temple-like structures.

Like life itself, Self-Portrait as a Building experiences change: it shrinks and expands, and rooms are added or left out. These changes are recorded in Provisional Floor-Plans, which serve as successive sketches of the layout of the building. The design for the exhibition consists of a labyrinth-like succession of rooms, erected out of lightweight building blocks. The position of the sculptures in relation to this temporary architecture is an essential part of the building.

Mark Manders was born in Volkel, The Netherlands and now lives and works in Arnhem, The Netherlands. Short Sad Thoughts can be seen in BALTIC’s Level 3 Art Space from Friday 27 January – Sunday 23 April 2006 Exhibition supported by the Mondriaan Foundation

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Mark Manders: Short Sad Thoughts