Belgian artist Mark Manders, known for his monumental half-bust sculptures that evoke classical art while appearing unfinished, opens a new exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. The show features works like *Bonewhite Clay Head with Vertical-Cloud* and *Monument*, both cast in bronze with a dusty white patina, alongside stretched canvases incorporating newspapers. Manders describes his practice as a form of three-dimensional writing, where objects and spatial relationships create meaning, and his pieces often explore themes of hidden grief and frozen time.
This exhibition matters because it highlights Manders’s unique approach to sculpture as a narrative system, where each work exists in dialogue with others to shape viewer experience. His emphasis on the role of words and objects in worldbuilding challenges traditional boundaries between sculpture, language, and installation art. The show also underscores the enduring relevance of figurative sculpture in contemporary art, while Manders’s personal reflections on grief and memory add emotional depth to his conceptual framework.