Mark Manders’ practice, from its outset, has centred around the idea of a continuously evolving self-portrait and his proposition of a ‘self portrait as a building’. The different iterations of this conceptual blueprint mostly take the form of sculpture in bronze and wood, while also encompassing installation, painting, drawing, writing, and publishing. His sculptural works, often centrally focused on anonymous figures, tend to be made in bronze while having the appearance of crumbling clay. Frequently set in dialogue with domestic furniture, Manders distorts the scale of his sculptures – the furniture pieces for instance, are repeatedly scaled down to 88% of their true size – in a distortion of reality that reorganises the experience of his work into an unfamiliar formal and lyrical domain.

Manders’ sculptures and installations, like words in a sentence, can be reordered infinitely, objects and forms creating new meaning and psychological interpretations each time, avoiding fixed interpretation while building a world of thoughtful propositions.

Mark Manders was born in 1968 in Volkel, Belgium, and he currently lives and works in Ronse, Belgium. His work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2021); 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa (duo exhibition with Michaël Borremans), (2020); Bonnefanten, Maastricht (2020); at Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela (2014); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2014); De Vleeshal, Middelburg (2014); Carré d’Art – Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes (2012); IMMA, Dublin (2005); The Art Institute, Chicago (2003); Renaissance Society, Chicago (2003); Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2003); amongst others. His solo show ‘Parallel Occurences / Documented Assignments’ travelled from the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (2010) to Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2011); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011); and Dallas Museum of Art (2012). ‘The Absence of Mark Manders’ toured from Kunstverein Hannover (2007) to Kunsthall Bergen (2008); S.M.A.K. in Ghent (2008) and Kunsthaus Zürich (2009).

In 2019 Public Art Fund commissioned Mark Manders to create a large public sculpture for the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, New York. He also created large outdoor sculptural installations for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2017) and for the Rokin Square in Amsterdam (2017).

In 2013 Manders represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennial. He was also included in the Ateliers de Rennes (2016), Athens Biennial (2007), Manifesta (2004) and the Venice Biennial (2001).