Movement conceptual art Name Mark Divo | Role Conceptual Artist Spouse Sonja Vectomov | |
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Born 1966 Zurich Periods Conceptual art, Contemporary art | ||
Mark Divo (born 1966) is a Luxembourgeois conceptual artist and curator who organises large scale interactive art projects incorporating the work of a number of well-known underground artists. His own work involves painting, performance, photography, inhabited sculpture and installation.
Career
Between 1988 and 1989 Divo worked in West Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 he moved to East Berlin, where he organised exhibitions at the Kunst Haus Tacheles. Between 1990 – 1994 he organised exhibitions, performances and murals with the Duncker group, which was awarded a prize by the Berlin Senate.
In 1994 he moved back to Zurich where he created a number of murals and organised a group of travelling mural painters (including Gabriel Serra). There he became notorious for organising a number of underground art projects funded by the Swiss government, including the first exhibitions / events in the subways of Escherwyssplatz. In 1995, he organised an international festival of underground art for which he received considerable critical acclaim. The work was given the name "post Industrial Baroque" by critics. Amongst the artists who exhibited were Swiss artist Ingo Giezendanner, German artist Leumund Cult and British artist Lennie Lee.
In 1996, Mark Divo exhibited at the Rich and famous gallery, London. In the winter of 2002, he occupied the famous Cabaret Voltaire with several artists including the Mikry Drei and Dan Jones. Together they succeeded in preventing the famous location closure. As a result of considerable publicity in the Swiss and international press, the building has now been turned into a museum dedicated to Dada (Cabaret Voltaire). In 2003 he organised another international Dada festival at the Sihlpapierfabrik.
Beginning in 2003, Divo organised an annual international Dada festival. In 2004, Divo was awarded a prestigious one year art residency at the Swiss art Institute in West Broadway, New York where he invited international artists to exhibit alongside him. in the summer of 2008 he established the Divo Institute a new multi-disciplinary arts centre in the city of Kolín, near Prague. In August 2009 Divo was one of thirty artist-curators invited to present work by international artists from the Divo Institute at the influential Subvision Art Festival, Hamburg.
Since becoming an artist, Mark Divo has exhibited in a number of prestigious museums throughout Europe including the Helmhaus, Zurich, The Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, the Casino Luxemburg, the Kunsthaus Zurich and the Kinsky Palace, Prague. He has three times been awarded the city of Zurich's art prize and has created three major public sculptures for the city of Zurich..
Since 2002, working in collaboration with artists, performers and photographers, Divo has produced a series of large format conceptual photographs in which he satirises politics and mocks art history.
In March 2012, Divo was given his first solo show entitled "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi" at the Mondejar Gallery, Zurich. The show consisted of paintings, assemblages and sculptures.