Mark van Yetter

Bridget Donahue is happy to present our fourth solo exhibition with Mark van Yetter, Portraits and Landscapes.

Artist's Statement:

I really cannot see any practical point to write about these works other than that it's something of a protocol to provide what is often referred to as a ‘press release' for an exhibition.

As the title suggests, these are portraits of people I have known presented alongside some small landscapes. In this regard, the subject is rather straight forward. They continue, as all my endeavors, towards image making, to communicate through terms closely related to poetics. As frustrating as this might be for those left to task with communicating these in the perceived logical terms of language I apologies that no simple narrative might be offered for reaching their essence and delivering it to broader public. In short, for those that persist to parse these works I assume you will not be left at ease if you hope to venture beyond the surface.

Although nothing about them is clouded in mystery, they require one to take that difficult step away from habit and not look for a clear message. As is the case with any work of art, what might be referred to as its strength, will lay slightly outside (the obvious). When strength rests inside the spirit of the artwork, it strives to radiate and might be able to engage with the viewer. From this perspective language appears a clumsy tool. What they are ultimately prone to be received as: objects; and, as such, they will plummet into the ruthless and spiritually dead terms of commerce. It is from this world of commerce that they will likely obtain their understanding for the overwhelming majority and from here they are most likely to receive what are understood as credentials and possibly acceptance.

What is inflicted on them will have mainly to do with the duplicitous structure commerce has built from an invisible and complicated web of relationships and held together in such an astonishingly precarious fashion that, as if by magic, it is kept from collapse only through a united acceptance of conceived power structures. In the end, it often appears this complex apparatus of society, where commerce rests as a foundation, has allowed what it has labeled "visual art" to operate, in full earnestness, to limit any potential art might have. Sadly this system has discovered no way to penetrate into the spirit of the objects it has so willingly taken into its realm. For you few who have heard the images speak in terms related to the spirit I hope you might also be rich and powerful.

—Mark van Yetter

Mark van Yetter (b. 1978) lives and works in the Poconos, PA. Van Yetter co-founded exhibition space Marquise Dance Hall (2007-2015), which started as a book and record store in New York, before transitioning to an itinerant gallery in Istanbul. Solo exhibitions include Ebensperger, Berlin, GE (2022, 2019); False Friends… and Six Bottles, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, St. Gallen, CH (2019); Drawings 2005 - 2018: 20 Propositions at Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, AT (2018); Bridget Donahue, New York, US (2023, 2018, 2016); Micky Schubert, Berlin, DE (2016); The mere knowledge of a fact is pale, Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger, NO (2016); VI, VII, Oslo, NO (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Catechism, Bridget Donahue, New York, US (2022); Freedom & Independence, Ebensperger, Berlin, GE (2020); Any Day Now, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, GE (2020); To confess, one must tell lies, Clages Gallery, Cologne, GE (2019); Nightfall, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels, BE (2018); All'estero & Dr. K.'s Badereise nach Riva: Version B, Croy Nielsen, Vienna, AT (2018); All'estero & Dr. K. Takes the Waters at Riva: Version A, A Plus A Gallery, Venice, IT (2018); Hütti, Ludlow 38, New York, US (2017); At the bar, MD Bar, Cologne, DE (2017); Monday is a Day Between Sunday and Tuesday, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, DE (2017); Group Show, Micky Schubert, Berlin, DE (2015); Eray Börtecene, Sonja Weissmann, Mark van Yetter, Institut für Bienenzucht, Düsseldorf, DE (2014). Van Yetter was the recipient of the Fürstenberg Zeitgenössisch Residency in 2016.