Helen Marten
Helen Marten (born 1985, Macclesfield, UK) is an artist living in London who works in sculpture, video, and installation art. Marten studied at Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford, 2005-2008 and Central Saint Martins, 2004. Her work has been included in the 56th Venice Biennale and the 20th Biennale of Sydney. She has won the 2012 LUMA Award from the (LUMA Foundation), the Prix Lafayette in 2011, and the inaugural Hepworth Prize in 2016.
Career
Marten studied at Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford, 2005-2008 and Central Saint Martins, 2004.
Marten's work is in the collections of Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway ; and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.[1]
Marten is represented by Sadie Coles HQ[2] in London, Greene Naftali[3] in New York, König Galerie[4] in Berlin, and t293[5] in Rome.
On winning The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture on 17 November 2016, she announced that she would share the £30,000 prize money with the three others on the shortlist, saying "In the light of the world’s ever lengthening political shadow, the art world has a responsibility to show how democracy should work. I’m was flattered to be on the shortlist and even more so if my fellow nominees would share the Prize with me".[6] She added, "Here's to a furthering of communality and a platform for everyone".[7]
Notable solo exhibitions
- Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2016)
- Eucalyptus, Let us in, Greene Naftali, New York (2016)
- Orchids, or a hemispherical bottom, Johann König, Berlin (2014)
- Parrot Problems, Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2014)
- Oreo St. James, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2014)
- No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed, CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson (NY), USA (2013)
- Plank Salad, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012)
- Evian Disease, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012)
- ALMOST THE EXACT SHAPE OF FLORIDA, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland (2012)
- Dust and Piranhas, Park Night Project, Serpentine Gallery, London (2011)
- Take a stick and make it sharp, Johann König, Berlin (2011)
- All the single ladies, Coltorti, Miami (FL), USA (2010)
- Wicked patterns, T293, Naples, Italy (2010)
Selected group exhibitions
- 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor (2015)
- The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed, 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016)
- From Minimalism into Algorithm, The Kitchen, New York (2016)
- Suspended Animation, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC (2016)
Critical comment
Writing about year-long touring exhibition, Almost the exact shape of Florida at Kunsthalle Zürich, Plank Salad at Chisenhale Gallery in London (2012) and No borders in a wok that can't be crossed at the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture at Bard College (2013), the curators of the three exhibitions called them "one of the most fertile, and one might say febrile, artistic productions of our time, cannily utilizing the potential of both the analogue and digital to make sculptures, videos, and installations that collapse traditional forms and boundaries of matter, language, and meaning."[8] Jörg Heiser has written of her work, "Marten treats physical stuff the digital way: she drags and drops, compresses and unpacks, crashes and reboots."[9]
Reviewing Marten's 2012 show Plank Salad for The Guardian, Adrian Searle concluded, "Marten makes you want to look very closely at the things she makes and the traces she leaves. Her way of thinking, with its word salads and trap-door metaphors, is dangerously infectious. I hate the idea of artists as rising stars, because they all too often turn into next year’s burned-out asteroids. But imagine what Marten might do with an asteroid. Rarely have I been so struck."[10]
Awards
- The Fitzgerald Prize, Exeter College, Oxford, 2008
- The Boise Travel Scholarship, 2009
- Prix Lafayette, 2011
- LUMA Award, 2011 (shortlist), selected by Tom Eccles, Liam Gillick, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philippe Parreno and Beatrix Ruf
- LUMA Award 2012 (LUMA Foundation), winner
- The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, 2016[7]
Bibliography
- Archer, Michael; Atkins, Ed; Eccles, Tom (24 May 2013). Eccles, Tom; Ruf, Beatrix; Staple, Polly, eds. Helen Marten (Bilingual ed.). JRP-Ringier. ISBN 978-3037643464.
- Diederichsen, Diedrich; Burton, Johanna (25 October 2016). Pfeffer, Susanne, ed. Helen Marten: Parrot Problems. Artist, Designer: Helen Marten. Koenig Books. ISBN 978-3863358761.
References
- ↑ "Helen Marten bio - Greene Naftali". Greene Naftali. Greene Naftali. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ↑ "Helen Marten bio - Sadie Coles". Sadie Coles. Sadie Coles. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ↑ "Helen Marten - Greene Naftali". Greene Naftali. Greene Naftali.
- ↑ "Helen Marten - König Galerie". König Galerie. König Galerie. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ↑ "Helen Marten - t293". t293. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ↑ Loughrey, Clarisse (18 November 2016). "Hepworth sculpture prize winner vows to share £30,000 winnings with other nominees". The Independent. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
- 1 2 Brown, Mark (17 November 2016). "Helen Marten wins Hepworth prize for sculpture". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
- ↑ Archer, Michael; Atkins, Ed; Eccles, Tom (24 May 2013). Eccles, Tom; Ruf, Beatrix; Staple, Polly, eds. Helen Marten (Bilingual ed.). JRP-Ringier. ISBN 978-3037643464.
- ↑ Heiser, Jörg. "Focus: Helen Marten". Frieze. Frieze. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ↑ Searle, Adrian (25 November 2012). "Monkeying with Mozart: the striking art of Helen Marten". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
External links
- Artist's website
- Marten, Helen. "My Influences," Frieze, May 2013
- Heiser, Jörg, "Focus: Helen Marten," Frieze, November-December 2011