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

1993

Installation, variable dimensions.
Materials: yton, foil, steel

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.