Mark Manders | Silent Studio

Wednesday, December 18, 2024 – Saturday, March 8, 2025

12–7pm

[Preview & Reception: Tuesday, December 17, 5–7pm]

*Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays 

*Winter Holidays: December 28 – January 6

 Gallery Koyanagi presents the solo exhibition of Mark Manders “Silent Studio” from Wednesday, December 18, 2024 to Saturday, March 8, 2025. In this exhibition, Gallery Koyanagi’s exhibition space will be transformed by the artist into a studio space where an artist had worked and just left.

Initially inspired by an interest in poetry and language, Manders has been creating installation in which sculptures, furniture, everyday objects, and architectural components are placed in ‘imaginary’ rooms with an elaborate layout plan since the late 1980s. All elements are fragments of the artist’s installation being ‘Self-Portrait as a Building’ as the artist puts it, Manders has been visualizing in the exhibition space, his own abstract and personal thoughts and feelings, through sculptures that embody beauty which transcends time, and furniture that are slightly scaled down from the real.

In this exhibition titled “Silent Studio,” the gallery space will be enclosed in a thin, translucent vinyl film, with which the space seems to turn into the artist's studio. In the center will be Bonewhite Clay Head with Two Ropes (2018-2024), a dry, crumbled-looking sculpture on a workbench that is held in place with ropes, and the work harbors an air of tension and fragility as if on the verge of collapse. The placement of these works in the studio setting gives the viewer the impression of a work in progress, as if the artist had been present in the quiet studio or had been gone for a long time. The sculptures, which appear ephemeral, are in fact solidly made of bronze and other materials; it is as if one ‘frozen moment’ was captured.

The color ‘bonewhite’ used in some of the works in this exhibition, is a grayish white that gives the work a transient impression, while the blue in Manders' work, depending on its hue and depth, alludes to different times of the sea, the landscape, and the sky. The deep blue of Nightfall Scene (2024) represents the twilight sky; in effect, the colors and materials used establish a quiet dialogue between the elements, thus creating a poetic space.

We will be hosting a preview and reception with Mark Manders on Tuesday, December 17, from 5 to 7 p.m., which is the evening before the first day of the exhibition. 

During the period of this exhibition, “Pre-30th Anniversary Exhibit: Rising Light / Frozen Moment” is being held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. A special installation of Dry Figure on Chair (2011-15) from the museum's collection is on view through Sunday March 30, 2025. Please take advantage of this opportunity to see his contrasting installation.

Bonewhite Clay Head  with Two Ropes

2018-2024

painted bronze, plywood board,

plastic sheet, 3 iron stands

98.5 x 64 x 82 cm (sculpture)

Photo: Keizo Kioku