Mark Manders Room with Broken Sentence

Press Release
May, 2013
Dutch Pavilion
55. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte
La Biennale di Venezia
Curator: Lorenzo Benedetti
Commissioner: Mondriaan Fund
Mark Manders
Room with
Broken Sentence
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Giardini, Venice
1 June – 24 November 2013
Opening: 29 May, 11 am, at the Dutch pavilion
www.venicebiennale.nl
Mark Manders (1968) is representing the Netherlands
at the 55th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale
di Venezia. The Dutch pavilion showcases Room with
Broken Sentence, curated by Lorenzo Benedetti
(1972). The exhibition covers a 23 year span of
Manders’ activity, combining existing installations
with a spectacular 4 meter high monumental new
work.
The larger installations developed specially for the
Rietveld pavilion reveal significant new aspects
of the artist’s formal and conceptual vocabulary.
Turning his back on the frenetic consumerist
dynamics of today’s cultural system, Manders
withdraws into sculptures that seem to have always
been there. All works combine a certain mystery
with tremendous visual appeal. Manders’ use of
materials, in which nothing is what it seems (epoxy
looks like clay, clay becomes bronze and bronze
seems to be wood), enhances this enigmatic visual
impact. Leaving the shelter of the ‘white cube’, it
infiltrates, blends into and seeks acknowledgement
within a reality close to that of the general public.
In an interview Manders stated: “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”. There is a satellite
exhibition in a Venetian supermarket proving this
aspect of his work.
2013 is a special year for the Netherlands at the
Venice Biennale, as it celebrates both a 100th and a
60th anniversary. The Netherlands may have been
present since the start of the Biennale, but only
from 1913 onwards in their own exhibition space and
since 1953 in the present pavilion designed by the
great Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld. The selection
of Mark Manders places him in direct confrontation
with Rietveld, whose Modernist pavilion is one
of the architectural jewels of the Giardini of the
Biennale. The result will be a dialogue between two
Dutchmen: a Modernist architect and an artist who,
a child of his time, sets out to decipher the enigmatic
temporal dimension of our age and create a parallel,
autonomous one of his own.
Manders launched his career in 1986 with a work
entitled Self-Portrait as a Building: a floor plan of
a building realised with pencils, pens and other
writing implements. From this point onwards his art
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has revolved around the exploration of this inner
building. He has had solo exhibitions at the Art
Institute Chicago and the Renaissance Society in
Chicago, Berkeley Art Museum, the Irish Museum
of Modern Art in Dublin, Carillo Gil Museum of Art
in Mexico City, and in Musée Carré d’Art in Nîmes
amongst others. In 2010 Manders’ first American
exhibition tour started in the Hammer Museum in Los
Angeles and travelled to the Aspen Museum of Art,
the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Dallas
Museum of Art.
Lorenzo Benedetti, since 2008 director of the Art
Center De Vleeshal at Middelburg, The Netherlands,
is internationally recognized for his inspired
presentations. He studied Art history at La Sapienza
in Rome and attended the Curatorial Training
Program at de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam. He
was curator in Marta Herford under the direction
of Jan Hoet, and guest curator at La Kunsthalle
Mulhouse. He is tutor at the Jan van Eyck Academy
in Maastricht and writes regularly for exhibition
catalogues and art magazines.
Publication
Entitled Room with Broken Sentence, a fully
illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
This publication will have an unique character, the
large number of contributions creating an interesting
multiple perspective on the work of Manders. The
authors are: Maxwell L. Anderson / Maria Barnas /
Stephan Berg / Achim Borchardt-Hume / Saskia Bos
/ Philippe Van Cauteren / Doryun Chong / Penelope
Curtis / Birgit Donker / Nickel van Duijvenboden /
Peter Eleey / Douglas Fogle / Gary Garrels / Jeffrey
Grove / Hans den Hartog Jager / Jan Hoet / Laura
Hoptman / Wonne Ickx / Toby Kamps / Yukie Kamiya
/ Mami Kataoka / Vincenzo Latronico / Maaike
Lauwaert / Jean-Hubert Martin / François Piron /
Philippe Pirotte / Yasmil Raymond / Hans Rudolf
Reust / Lon Robbé / Dieter Roelstraete / Ralph Rugoff
/ Nancy Spector / Susan Lubowsky Talbott / Mirjam
Varadinis / Olga Viso / Joel Wachs / Ida van Zijl /
Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, each reflecting on an
individual piece. The catalogue will be published by
Roma Publications, Amsterdam.
Roma Publication 200
176 p, ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, pb, English
ISBN 978 90 77459 96 6
Round-table Discussion:
The Netherlands – Italy
During the opening days of the Biennale the
Mondriaan Fund and the Embassy of the Kingdom
of the Netherlands in Rome will be organising a
round-table discussion. The discussion will take
a close look at the artistic ties that exist between
Italy and the Netherlands – from both a historical
and contemporary perspective – and will include
representatives from several generations of Italian
and Dutch artists and curators. Speakers: Rossella
Biscotti and Giorgio Andreotta Calò (Italian artists
who work in the Netherlands), Gianfranco Maraniello
(director of Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna and
curator of important exhibitions with Dutch artists),
Jan Dibbets and Remco Torenbosch (Dutch artists)
Moderator: Ann Demeester (director de Appel arts
centre in Amsterdam).
Mondriaan Fund
The Mondriaan Fund has been responsible for the
Dutch presence at the Venice Biennale since 1995.
This year the entry was determined through a juried
open call; 82 proposals were submitted from which
the Manders & Benedetti plan was selected.
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Further Information and Images
International press contact:
RP PR, Rhiannon Pickles
t +31 (0)615821202
info@picklespr.com
Contact Dutch press:
Mondriaan Fund, Caroline Soons
t +31 (0)20 523 15 23
For images please visit www.venicebiennale.nl
where images can be downloaded with additional
texts.

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