A Rather Drab Affair, 2016, oil on paper,
84 × 59.5 cm
Week 2 / Monday 24 July–Sunday 30 July
Mark Van Yetter
24.07.2017 18:00 / Aimless
Location: Galerie 5020
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Language: English
Location: Residenzplatz 10, 5020 SalzburgThe life of a painter is a life filled with time spent alone. Painting is an act of focused solitude. I often feel it is an action that helps to divert one from concrete thinking. In this way it is an escape from what others might describe as “practical logic”. Painters create a visual interpretation of something; they do this not from nothing, but from their own experience. In a sense, they create their own world in the hope that others might gain a notable experience from it.
I describe painting here in rather romantic terms. Certainly there are those who use painting as a formal conceptual device, those who hire others to make their paintings, those who paint what they have projected on to the canvas – but all this has nothing to do with what I am talking about when I say “painting”. I am referring to painting in stricter terms, as a process of and for itself, as an idiosyncratic process of interpreting the world. In this lecture I will take the opportunity to relay my personal experience as one who spends much of his time alone, painting, in the hope of offering an honest assessment of how this has shaped my view of the world.
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Mark Van Yetter, born 1978 in Pennsylvania (US), lives and works in Berlin. He is co-founder of the exhibition space Marquise Dance Hall. His paintings have been presented internationally for over a decade. His work is firmly rooted in painting. Using both a figurative and an abstract language to address issues related to power and human interaction, his work often engages with macabre subject-matter while using a formal language that is both humorous and uplifting, creating an unsettling and complex dynamic. He recently won the 2016 Fürstenberg Zeitgenössisch grant.
Solo exhibitions
2017 The Terrifying Abyss of Scepticism, Bridget Donahue, New York, NY (US). 2016 We are what we walk between, Micky Schubert, Berlin. The mere knowledge of a fact is pale, Kunsthall, Stavanger (NO). 2015 Relentless Compassion, VI VII, Oslo. 2011 Alex Zachary, New York. 2004 Direct from Poconos, StarShip, Berlin.
Group exhibitions
2015 A Walk Down Sensitive Avenue, with Stefanie Popp, Kunstwerk EV, Cologne (DE). 2014 Don’t you feel me, Micky Schubert, Berlin. Eray Börtecene, Sonja Weissmann, Mark Van Yetter, Institut für Bienenzucht, Düsseldorf (DE). Touched, Apt. 302, Marseille (FR), Art Metropole, Toronto (CA). 2011 The Keno Twins 4, Villa Merkel, Esslingen (DE). 2009 Against Interpretation, Studio Voltaire, London. Ein Ding von Schönheit ein Glück auf immer, curated by Abel Auer, Corvi-Mora Gallery, London.
Publications
Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, “The Nature of Imitation”, in: Mousse Magazine, no. 53, April/May 2016, pp 78–85.
Melissa Canbaz, “Mark Van Yetter”, in: frieze magazine, issue 179, May 2016.
Mark Van Yetter & Mihaela Chiriac, “Picture Talk”, in: Starship 14, Spring 2016.
Heather Jones, “Interview with Mark Van Yetter”, 2016, https://kunsthallstavanger.no/en/blog/interview-mark-van-yetter, (retrieved 20 November 2016).