Mark Lewis (artist)
{{Short description|Canadian artist, born 1958}}
{{Infobox artist
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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1958}}
| birth_place = Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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| spouse = Janice Kerbel
| field = Installation artist
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Mark Lewis (born 1958) is a Canadian artist, best known for his film installations. He represented Canada at the 2009 Venice Biennale.[http://www.canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2008/dz128606242512928308.htm Artist Mark Lewis will represent Canada at the 2009 Venice Biennale of Visual Art] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100422221500/http://www.canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2008/dz128606242512928308.htm |date=2010-04-22 }}
Biography
Lewis attended the Harrow College of Art (London) and the Polytechnic of Central London. In the 1980s, he studied with Victor Burgin, and was a friend of Laura Mulvey in 1981.Nancy Tousley, "So Much to See: The Films of Mark Lewis", Canadian Art (Summer 2009): 49-53 He began his career as a photographer and from 1989 to 1997 lived in Vancouver, becoming part of the burgeoning photoconceptualism scene of the Vancouver School. In 1991, he produced the documentary Disgraced Monuments with Mulvey.{{cite web |title=Disgraced Monuments (1991–1993) |url=https://wexarts.org/film-video/laura-mulvey-and-mark-lewis |website=wexarts.org |publisher=wex arts |access-date=2021-10-04}} In the mid‑1990s, he began making film-based installations . His first art film was Two Impossible Films (1995). In 1999, he eliminated sound from his film. His work focuses on the technology of film and the different genres which have developed in over 100 years of film history: he makes films that are often short, precise exercises on particular techniques, particularly rear projection (he believes the invention of rear projection in late 1920s was when film became modern) and playing film backwards. In 2020, he told an interviewer:
The only real technical invention of the cinema is the ability to go backward.{{cite web |title=Mark Lewis |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tIRWpbl82A |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211220/9tIRWpbl82A |archive-date=2021-12-20 |url-status=live|website=www.youtube.com |publisher=OCAD, 2020 |access-date=2021-10-03}}{{cbignore}}
In 2009, he represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in Italy in an exhibition curated by Barbara Fischer. He has had solo museum exhibitions at the Musée du Louvre, Paris (2014), The Power Plant, Toronto (2015), the Art Gallery of Ontario which organized Mark Lewis. Canada (2017),{{cite web |title=Mark Lewis. Canada |url=https://ago.ca/exhibitions/mark-lewis-canada |website=ago.ca |publisher=Art Gallery of Ontario |access-date=2021-10-03}} the Museo de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) (2020), and at numerous other international venues such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Bucharest, Romania) (2005), the Hamburger Kunstverein (2005), Musée d’art Moderne du Grande Duc, Jean (Luxembourg) (2006), BFI Southbank (London) (2007), and at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2013). In 2022, a Mark Lewis Program was held by La Cinémathèque québécoise.{{cite web |title=Program |url=https://www.cinematheque.qc.ca/en/cinema/mark-lewis-progr |website=www.cinematheque.qc.ca |publisher=La cinematheque quebec |access-date=17 November 2023}}
His work is in many collections including the National Gallery of Canada; Museum of Modern Art New York; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Museo de Arte de São Paulo and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, among others. In 2007, he received the Gershon Iskowitz Prize and the Brit Art Doc Foundation Award.{{cite web |last1=Lewis |first1=Mark |title=Mark Lewis |url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/mark-lewis |website=www.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=2021-10-03}} In 2016, he received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.{{cite web |title=Governor General`s Awards in Visual and Media Arts Archives |url=https://en.ggarts.ca/the-awards/winner-archives |website=en.ggarts.ca |publisher=Governor General of Canada |access-date=2021-10-06}}{{cite web |title=Mark Lewis |url=https://www.fogoislandarts.ca/mark-lewis/ |website=www.fogoislandarts.ca |publisher=Fogo Island Arts |access-date=2021-10-03}}
He lives and works in London, England which he moved to in 1997. He is Professor in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and co-founder, co-director and co-editor of Afterall, a research and publishing project.
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- Lewis, Mark and Johanne Lamoureux. Mark Lewis: Public Art, Photographs and Projects. Vancouver: UBC Fine Arts Gallery, 1994. {{ISBN|0-88865-300-X}}
- Rush, Michael, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Laura Mulvey and Karen Allen. Mark Lewis. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|1-84631-037-7}}
- Tousley, Nancy. "So Much to See: The Films of Mark Lewis." Canadian Art (Summer 2009): 48-61.
- 'Mark Lewis in Conversation with Laura Mulvey', in Fabrizi, Elisabetta (ed), 'The BFI Gallery Book', BFI, London 2011, pp.30-39.
External links
- {{Official|http://www.marklewisstudio.com}}
- {{imdb name | 507505}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Mark}}
Category:Canadian installation artists
Category:Artists from Hamilton, Ontario
Category:Canadian contemporary artists
Category:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners