Mark Manders, Pt II

II.


Mind Study (2010-11), wood, painted expoxy, painted ceramic, painted canvas, iron, 170 x 240 x 500 cm. Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht. Photo David Huguenin, courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

ART iT: So far we’ve been talking generally about your “Self-Portrait as a Building” and how it relates to the concept of the super-moment. Now I want to ask you about a specific work, Mind Study, from the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. This work comprises a wood table resting on some chairs, and a one-legged figure that appears to be balancing on the edge of the table. You’ve referred to this work as a “three-dimensional poem.” Where do you see the connection between writing, buildings and sculpture?

MM: First of all, with this work you have very normal words linked together, like chairs, table and figure. I looked for a way to combine them in a way that has so much tension that it would become like a very strong balancing trick. The work stretches them into something that is really delicate and peaceful and at the same time filled with tension. So I made a table without legs, and I think it’s nice because you still see it as a table, even though it’s just a wooden plank, which is resting directly on the chairs, and then I added a weight that is supposed to keep the one-legged figure in balance.
Of course, the figure is not really balancing, there’s iron inside it, and it’s very strong. It was interesting to see the Biennale visitors moving very carefully around the figure, because it really feels like it could fall at any moment. So this is a poem that was essentially made with only three words.

ART iT: What about the other parts of the work, like the way you wrapped bits of fabric around the chairs? Do the smaller details also function in a poetic or linguistic way as well?

MM: Absolutely. It’s also language, but very difficult to talk about. I think the details are very important. The way the rope goes under the mass of clay at the foot of the structure, and then there’s a piece of wood sticking into the clay – all these details are important.
Also, the way I make the chairs. In this case, I made them a little too big – they are somewhat bigger than they would be in reality. They are very strange chairs. You feel you recognize them from some historical period, but you don’t know exactly which one.
The title of the work is also strange, Mind Study. Actually, I used the same title for an earlier work I made, and the two works are almost the opposite in character. For me, the title refers to a study of the mind of both the person who made it and also the viewer, because everybody will read it differently.
In the other Mind Study work, there is a big machine, with three figures – two dogs and one primitive human figure. It looks like a very complex machine, but it’s based on my very first floor plan for “Self-Portrait as a Building,” and in fact you can see there are some rooms arranged on the floor. If you look at all the details, it’s like a machine where nothing is wasted. All the different things connect together and it’s very systematic, like a closed circuit.

ART iT: But is it not a poem?

MM: No. It is a “mind study,” in two senses of the phrase. It took me many years to make this work – 19 years to be exact. I started very slowly, progressing step by step by step until it was finished. If you see the work up close, you can follow all the steps. So it’s like a mind study in that sense, but it’s also a mind study because of the way all the interconnecting parts suggest that it functions like a mind.


Mind Study (2011), bronze, iron, wood, 355 x 850 x 450 cm. Photo David Huguenin, courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.

ART iT: And when you work on a piece for 19 years, do you have a general outline you pursue from the start?

MM: Yes. In this case I really had a goal, I just didn’t know how to technically realize it. For example, one part I made 10 years ago. Also I didn’t have the time and space. It was never the right moment to finish it. Sometimes I made a part and then it wasn’t good enough and I had to re-do it. It was always in my studio waiting to go. The Venice Mind Study only took two years. But the first one was an image I had in my mind and I just needed more time to make it.

ART iT: Could you discuss more about how you understand poetry? In terms of the work, is it about juxtaposing different things?

MM: Poetry is something strange, because we can share it. Maybe not with everybody, but the beautiful thing about poetry is that some people can read it and it can be something we have in common. Maybe something that we think is poetic now will not be understood by people 200 years from now, but I have the feeling that when something is really poetic, it can last for thousands of years.

ART iT: Maybe poetry is a conscious way to intervene into the constant rush of emotions and experiences that constitute our lives – to “freeze time,” as you say, and freeze our emotional states, before they slip away and are obliterated by the next thing.

MM: Poetry is a combination of the emotional and the intellectual. If poetry does not connect to something emotionally, it’s not worth it surviving. Sometimes I’m worried that there is not enough time for poetry any more. But I’m certain that it will survive.

Pt I | III

Mark Manders: Nought but the Leg

Copyrighted Image