Mark Manders at Tanya Bonakdar

In his fifth solo exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar, Mark Manders continues to invent new ways of bending time, space, and genre with “Writing Skiapod.” The show explores how language can become abstracted when reconfigured or placed in new contexts. Manders created his Notional Newspapers early in his practice and recently completed the project, which now includes every word in the English language. These aren’t “real” newspapers, but an undermining of them with words and images strung together in an incongruous manner, evading any sense of narrative or meaning. Manders also uses newspapers as canvases for his paintings and bolsters in his sculptures, straying further from their intended purpose as reading material each time. 

The word “skiapod” (Greek for “shadow foot”) in the show’s title comes from the tale of an ancient creature who used its large foot as a shelter from the sun. Manders takes humans’ relationship to urban legends and leans into themes of invention, fantasy, and fake news. He blurs the lines between fact and fiction by constructing new realities that cause visitors to second guess what’s real and what isn’t.

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Photo: Installation shot, Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles