Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins (born October 7, 1970) is an American artist who makes sculptural street installations. Jenkins' practice of street art is to use the "street as a stage" where his sculptures interact with the surrounding environment including passersby who unknowingly become actors. His installations often draw the attention of the police. His work has been described as whimsical, macabre, shocking and situationist. Jenkins cites Juan Muñoz as his initial inspiration.

In addition to creating art, he also teaches his sculpture techniques and installation practices through workshops. He currently lives in Washington, DC.

Life and career

Jenkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia, but first began experimenting with tape as a casting medium for creating sculpture in 2003 while living in Rio de Janeiro. Wrapping the tape in reverse and then resealing it, he was able to make casts of objects including himself. One of his first street projects was a series of clear tape self-casts that he installed on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Jenkins became immediately interested in the reactions of the people and considered his installation as much a social experiment as an art project.

In 2004 he moved back to Washington DC and in 2005 he began working with Sandra Fernandez on the Storker Project, a series in which clear casts of toy babies are installed in different cities to interact with their surrounding environment. Jenkins and Fernandez continued to create other installations using tape animals--dogs playing in litter, giraffes nibbling plastic bags from trees, and ducks swimming in gutters. Other outdoor projects which explore culture jamming include Meterpops, Traffic-Go-Round, and Signs of Spring.

In 2006 Jenkins began the Embed Series. The tape casts were filled with newspaper and cement and dressed to create hyper realistic sculptural duplicates of himself and Fernandez. These new lifelike sculpture installations created confusion causing some passers-by to make calls to 911 which caused police and sometimes rescue units to arrive on his "stage".

In 2008, Jenkins collaborated with Greenpeace on an awareness campaign, Plight of the Polar Bears, to draw attention to the melting Arctic ice caps. Jenkins created realistic figures appearing to be homeless people but with plush polar bear heads. The installations resulted in bomb squads being deployed to destroy the works subsequently creating controversy over the regulation of public space in the post 9/11 era. September

In 2018 Jenkins and his collaborator Sandra Fernandez, at the instigation of the charity 'CALM' (Campaign Against Living Miserably) created Project84 comprising life-size statues of 84 men on top of the ITV buildings at Southbank in London, England. It aimed to highlight the fact that, in the United Kingdom, an average 84 men die by suicide each week. . Each of the statues represented a specific, named individual who died by suicide.

Jenkins has participated in public art events Interferencia (Barcelona, 2008), BELEF (Belgrade, 2009), Dublin Contemporary 2011, Inside Out (Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, 2009), Living Layers (Rome, 2012), Les Vraisemblables (Nuit Blanche, Paris, 2014), Passages Insolites (Ex Muro, Quebec City 2021) Embed Bodies (Un Été au Havre, Le Havre, 2022). Some of these permission-based installations still resulted in removal by police after 911 calls.

Indoors, Jenkins has exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, and he continues his Embed Series in public settings such as cafeterias, schools and building lobbies. Shows include Glazed Paradise at Diesel Gallery (Tokyo, 2008), Meaning is Overrated at Carmichael Gallery (Los Angeles, 2009), Terrible Horrible at Ruttkowski;68 Gallery (Cologne, 2014), Moment of Impact at Lazarides Gallery (London, 2015), Remix at L'Arsenal (Montreal, 2016), BRD SHT at Magda Danysz Gallery (Paris, 2018).

In 2022, Jenkins was commissioned by Steve Lazarides to make a hyperrealistic sculpture of a woman passed out in a bowl of soup for his gallery, which subsequently resulted in police breaking down the gallery doors in a rescue attempt.

Museum shows include Recordings at Taubman Museum of Art (Roanoke,VA 2008), Ex Situ at Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2009), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (PERMM) (Perm, 2009), Street and Studio at Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna, 2010), and WE ARE [still] HERE at Petit Palais (Paris, 2026). .

Commercially Mark Jenkins collaborated with luxury fashion house Balenciaga to create hyperrealistic installations for high-profile store openings and collection launches Balenciaga including a portrait of the creative director Demna Gvasalia for “Balenciaga by Demna.”

In addition Jenkins has done film projects for the French Red Cross and Discovery Channel.

Publications Publication by Jenkins The Urban Theater: Mark Jenkins (2012)

Publications with contributions by Jenkins Hidden Track: How Visual Culture Is Going Places (2007) Tactile: High Touch Visuals (2007) Street World: Urban Art and Culture from Five Continents (2007) Outsiders: Art by People (2008) Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution (2008) Untitled II. The Beautiful Renaissance: Street Art and Graffiti (2009) Modart No. 01: Forget Art: In Order to Feel It (2010) Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Places (2010) Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art (2010) The Art of Rebellion #3 (2010) Street Art Cookbook: A Guide to Techniques and Materials (2011) Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism (2011) Walls & Frames: Fine Art from the Streets (2011) Trespass: A History Of Uncommissioned Urban Art (2011)