M HKA Ensembles

Drawing, 120 x 155 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp - Donation Friends of M HKA, 1995 (Inv. no. S0064).

Dutch sculptor Mark Manders, living in Belgium for some time, has been working for a number of years on his so-called Zelfportret als gebouw, an imaginary building to house his dreams, thoughts and memories. M HKA owns a few ‘fragments’ of this self-portrait: two pencil drawings, one sculpture and one installation. The two latter are assemblages of small objects. Matches, batteries or pencils have been rendered useless by the ‘wrong’ adjustments. The display and content of the house always vary, just like Manders’s own thoughts. A piece by him can function alone, but is always also part of a greater whole, a personal interpretation of the world, an oeuvre. Thus each of his works is a fragment of a building, a self-portrait, a self-portrait as building. Zelfportret als gebouw is a work-in-progress. When the things in the building are differently ordered, the identity of its creator (or at least our view of it) also changes. Manders’s oeuvre can be seen as a quest for an ever-changing, ever-evolving identity.