Galerie Eva Presenhuber is delighted to present, for the first time, an outdoor sculpture project by Mark Handforth. The sculpture titled Platz (Square), which has been created specially for the town of Zurich, has on the one hand a nautical touch to it, as it refers to Lake Zurich, which is just a stone’s throw away from the Tessinerplatz, while at the same time evoking industrial and urban influences: Oversized, intertwined links of a chain pile up to form a seemingly organic entity, allowing but an abstracted perception of the chaining of the individual elements. With regard to the object of its association, the colorfulness of the sculpture is rather surprising.

The artist, who was born in Hong Kong, raised in England, and is currently living in Mi-ami Beach, was featured in a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 2005, which was accompanied by the publication of a catalog.
Mark Handforth is known for his adaptations of industrially manufactured signposts and urban ‘furnishings’ such as street lamps, tires, motorcycles, parking meters, public telephones, or hydrants.

Handforth uses these artefacts, which Ed Ruscha once termed “overlooked objects”, by altering them, sometimes reproducing them partially, thus often keeping the viewer in the dark about whether they are ready-mades or not. He recognizes things existing in the world and takes them as a basis for his work, subjecting them to a shift in time. By transforming the objects, the artist lets them gain a new sense of poetry that carries the idea of vanity.

With his sculptures, Handforth creates a feel of urbanity. An integral part of his work is the negative space that the viewer intensely experiences between himself, the piece of art, and the surroundings. Within the urban context, entropy blends into memory, which both explains and multiplies the visual presence of the sculpture.

Installation views