Fragment uit zelfportret als gebouw [Fragment from self-portrait as a building]

Mark Manders

Fragment uit zelfportret als gebouw [Fragment from self-portrait as a building]
1993

Installation, variable dimensions.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK6983_M184).

One of the “rooms” from Mark Manders’ monumental total-work Self-portrait as a building is called Fragment from self-portrait as a building (1993) and was purchased by the M HKA in 1998. The work consists of a few human-like figures in gray, brown clay and a series of objects that are arranged on the ground in a precise composition, and where Manders gives free rein to his well-known obsession with the number 5. On instruction of the artist, here the M HKA itself can provide the architectural framework: the “room” is demarcated by an improvised wall of Ytong-blocks on the one side and a taut plastic sheet on the other. The ‘self-portrait as a building’ is an ongoing work-in-progress. When the things in the building are differently ordered or positioned, (our look at) the self-portrait of the identity of the artist is also changed. It is an investigation into identity, an identity with different sides, an identity that is evolving.

Artist

Mark Manders

Mark Manders