Hugo Markl

Hugo Markl (born December 6, 1964) is an American artist and curator. His practice spans a broad range of media, including sculpture, photography, video, drawing, printmaking, installation art, and performance. Markl lives in New York City.

Early life and education Markl was born in Pasadena, California. He pursued his studies in Visual communication at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (1985—90), where he earned an M.A. in fine arts.

Peers and constructive analytical approach

A constructive analytical approach to examining the art of Hugo Markl and Cady Noland would involve identifying recurring themes, materials, and techniques used by both artists, and then analyzing how these elements contribute to their broader artistic and social commentary. Both artists engage with themes of violence, power, and the American psyche, but through distinct approaches. Markl's work often features constructed environments and staged scenarios, while Noland utilizes found objects and industrial materials to critique societal structures. Born into an age of increasingly conceptually oriented art and post-modern tendencies to privilege content over contents, that is, work that speaks via press release In 2008, the conceptual artist presented "Link", a series of medium-sized, blue-painted aluminum sculptures devoid of any explicit art historical references.

Hugo Markl's Constructed Environments: Recurring themes: Markl's art frequently explores the human condition within constructed spaces, focusing on themes of containment, control, and the resulting unease. His installations challenge viewers to confront their own relationship with the built environment and its inherent limitations, often creating immersive experiences that force a reevaluation of societal structures. These elements appear both in iconographic tropes and others more newly minted. For example, in the exhibition SSSSS,

Markl's work has been reviewed in publications including Art in America and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. His work was noted for engaging with themes of aesthetic experience and the cultural significance of contemporary artistic creation. In 1997, Iwan Wirth described Hugo Markl's installation "Peter Builts" as "the opposite of Bruce Nauman's installations, but just as powerful." Despite these differences, Markl paid tribute to Bruce Nauman in 2012 at the solo exhibition "SSSSS" at Dittrich & Schlechtriem in Berlin, Germany, by impersonating Bruce Nauman.

Markl's art can easily forego the pathos of invention and stick to that which exists anyway in order to demonstrate that it never ends with itself or rests in itself, but can appear in ever new semantic constellations and/as actual contexts. This unstoppable mechanism and semantic movement is visualized by Hugo Markl, aka Peter Builts, by means of poetically channeled linkings which consistently defy any fixed determination and definitive interpretation. Keeping the play of interpretations open and moving, also means defining art as a technique of interpretation that needs to be interpreted in turn, venturing out into an open and unsecured field in order to comprehend precisely this dilemma as a potential. Viewed in this way Hugo Markl transfers the inescapable dynamics, contingency and temporariness of the concept of art into the production of his work, or in other words, through his way of defying to comply with the inherent conventions of the art market he shows that the production of art and of its concept constantly give rise to each other precisely because of their differences from each other.

Collaboration, curatorial work, public art, and representation Urs Fischer is the sole artist with whom Hugo Markl engaged in a collaborative endeavor in the strictest sense of the term. While Markl's curatorial work in the 2000s within the public art realm constitutes a distinct topic, Fischer and Markl collaborated on the video production for Markl's exhibition at Hauser & Wirth 2 in 1999. Images of video stills are on pages 38 and 39 of the 2001 published catalogue, The Birth of Peter Builts and the Death of Hugo Markl Because I no longer am I am everybody I am everything. This adaptation of a performance by British artists Gilbert and George exemplified the artistic approach of Fischer and Markl: to position the concept of appropriation as the central focus of their work. 2012 - DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, SSSSS, Berlin 2010 - Galerie Eva Presenhuber, "One day 1917, while his director was out sick with a hangover, John Ford made his first feature. ...", Zürich 2009 - AMP Gallery, DR FRANKENSTEIN, Athens 2008 - Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Link, Zürich 2007 - The Third Mind, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France 2007 - Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, MAMATSCHI, Naples 2006 - André Schlechtriem Temporary, CALCIUM, New York 2006 - Galleria Raucci / Santamaria, SHRUG, Naples 2006 - Galerie Eva Presenhuber, BROWN, Zurich 2003 - Gruppe Österreichische Guggenheim, PETER BUILTS OFFENE RECHNUNG, Vienna 1999 - Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, The Birth of Peter Builts and the Death of Hugo Markl Because I No Longer Am I Am Everybody I Am Everything, Zurich 1998 - Galerie am Andechshof, Hugo Markl & Paloma / Installativ und Konzert, Innsbruck 1997 - Liste 97 the young art fair, Basel 1997 - Galerie Walcheturm, peter builts, Zurich 1996 - Austrian Institute, NOSTALHU, London 1995 - ACME studios for the artists, superapologize 60 min., (major support by the Austrian institute, London), London 1994 - Galerie Walcheturm, Hugo Markl, Gudrun Ensslin, Zurich 1992 - Galerie Walcheturm, Hugo Markl, Zurich 1991 - Shedhalle, Manum de tabula, Zurich, Switzerland

1989 - Pinx Galerie, SHIRT, Vienna 1987 - Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Kieltrunk, Vienna

Group exhibitions

2019 - We The People, Lovaas, Munich, Germany 2016 - They printed it!, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich 2014 - La Gioia, Maison Particulière - Art Center, Brussels 2012 - Un'espressione geografica, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy 2010 | 2011 - PLUS ULTRA, Works from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection. Museo D'Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy 2010 - Haus für Kunst Uri, Edition 5, Erstfeld, Switzerland 2009 - Hamburger Bahnhof + Flick Collection, DIE KUNST IST SUPER!, Berlin 2009 - Galerie Patrick Seguin invites Galerie Eva Presenhuber, We Are Sun-kissed and Snow-blind, Paris 2009 - Burger Collection, CONFLICTING TALES, Berlin 2008 - Gladstone Gallery, No Information Available, curated by Francesco Bonami, Brussels 2007 - Yvon Lambert Gallery, Mario Testino‚ At Home, New York - House Eva Presenhuber, Jubilee Exhibition, Vnà, Switzerland - Palais de Tokyo, The Third Mind, curated by Ugo Rondinone, Paris 2005 - Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, INTERSTATE, New York 2003 - Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck - Gruppe Öesterreichische Guggenheim, Kunstverein, GLÜHWEIN + KESCHTN – Lavuapappn, Vienna 1998 - Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, 20 Haus, Die Sammlung, Vienna 1996 - Artothek im Parlamentsgebäude, Ausstellung 96, Vienna - Kunsthaus Zürich, Wunderkammer Öesterreich, Zurich - MAK – Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Austria im Rosennetz, Vienna - Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Coming up, Vienna - Kunstankäufe des Landes Tirol 1994 –1996, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck 1995 - Fondazione Querini, Lokalzeit – Wiener Material im Spiegel des Unbehagens, (curator Peter Weibel), Venice - Karin Kilimnik, Galerie Walcheturm, window display by Hugo Markl, no face entertainment raw, Zurich - ACME studios for the artists, superapologize 60 min., (major support by the Austrian institute, London), London 1994 - Museum und Galerie Moderner Kunst Laibach, Lokalzeit – Wiener Material im Spiegel des Unbehagens, Laibach / SLO - Kunstraum Strohal, Lokalzeit – Wiener Material im Spiegel des Unbehagens, Vienna - Galerie im Taxispalais, Art Tirol, Innsbruck 1994 - Eine Galerie stellt sich vor: Galerie Wacheturm, Zürich, Galerie im Taxispalais, Tirol, Innsbruck 1993 - Centre d' Art Contemporain Martigny, Martigny 1991 - Shedhalle, Manum de tabula, Zurich 1990 - Group Show, Galerie Walcheturm, Zurich 1989 - Secession, Junge Szene Wien, Vienna 1989 - Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, (curator Oswald Oberhuber), Vienna

Collections

Private collections

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy Burger Collection, Hong Kong, China Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria Pomeranz Collection, Vienna, Austria Andreas Züst († 2000) Collection, Switzerland Joel Wachs, President of the Andy Warhol Foundation, New York, N.Y. Claude Berri († 2009), Paris, France Sofia Coppola, New York, N.Y. Urs Fischer, New York, N.Y. Ugo Rondinone, New York, N.Y. Mario Testino, Art Projects at Home, Paris, France, and New York, N.Y. David Teiger († 2014), New York, N.Y. Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland

Public collections

Mead Art Museum at Amherst College Hampshire College Art Gallery Historic Deerfield Mount Holyoke College Art Museum The Joseph Allen Skinner Museum at Mount Holyoke College Smith College Museum of Art University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMASS Amherst