German photographer and artist

Oliver Mark (born 20 February 1963) is a German photographer and artist known primarily for his portraits of international celebrities.

Contents

• 1 Life and education
• 2 Work
  • 2.1 Collaborations
• 3 Exhibitions
  • 3.1 Solo exhibitions
  • 3.2 Curated exhibitions
• 4 Publications
• 5 Collections
• 6 Gallery
• 7 See also
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Life and education

Mark trained as a photographer, working first in the field of fashion photography at Burda Photo Studios in Offenburg. As a guest student, he attended seminars in Visual Culture at the Berlin University of the Arts by Katharina Sieverding, known for her large format photographs.

Mark is the father of two sons and currently lives in Berlin.

Work

Jenny Holzer, Leipzig 1996. Silver gelatin print on Alu Dibond. 151 × 154 cm (59 × 61")

In the 1990s, Mark began photographing celebrities. He became known for his portraits of Anthony Hopkins and Jerry Lewis, but also of other public figures including Angela Merkel, Pope Benedict XVI, and Joachim Gauck, and actors like Ben Kingsley, Cate Blanchett and Tom Hanks. His personal interest lies in contemporary artists and their creative world. He has close contacts with well-established and emerging artists, who he portrays in their working environment.

He works with both a single-lens reflex camera and an old, 680 Polaroid. The instant photos produced by the Polaroid reveal Mark's familiarity and closeness to the subjects he portrays.

He has worked for magazines such as Architectural Digest, Rolling Stone, Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Stern, Time, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Die Zeit.

In 2013, one of his photographs was honored by a National Portrait Gallery (London) award. In 2014, Mark published his own magazine en*led Oliver – Nutte Künstler Fotograf. Die ganze Wahrheit über Oliver Mark .

Collaborations

Mark began working with the artist Christian Hoischen in 2017 under the name Hoischen / Mark.

Exhibitions

Mark's exhibition Natura Morta, which was presented in two parts at the Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Natural History Museum Vienna in 2017, addresses how humans deal with nature and the environment, in particular the animal world, but also the aesthetics and beauty death. Mark's still life photographs were taken in the *ervat Chamber of the Federal Office for Nature Conservation in Bonn in 2015. His idea was to photograph items seized by customs, such as leopard skulls, ivory carvings, crocodile and turtle products, protected animal and plant parts, etc. He photographed these using specific backgrounds and a method of lighting (Old Master-like daylight, lit only through a crack) to generate in the viewer a desire to observe. In the Vienna Natural History Museum, these items are sorted into three categories and exhibited in context with different animal specimens, to address the topic of species protection. The photographs were presented in historical picture frames. This created a dialog in the Paintings Gallery of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts between the different genres of painting and photography as well as the painted or photographed still lifes.

Installation views from the exhibition Natura Morta in the Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Natural History Museum, Vienna, 2017

Solo exhibitions

• 1999: Portraits, Galerie 48, Saarbrücken
• 2000: Portraits und Memorabilien, Galerie Grauwert, Hamburg
• 2001: Photographien, Galerie Imago, Berlin
• 2002/03: Portraits, Musée de la photographie, Mougins
• 2006: Portraits & Stills, Anna Augstein Fine Arts Berlin
• 2011: 7 Artists and 1 Nude, Galerie Gloria, Berlin
• 2011: Portraits, Neuer Pfaffenhofener Kunstverein, Pfaffenhofen a. d. Ilm
• 2012: Shuteye, °CLAIR Gallery, Munich
• 2012/13: Märkische Adlige – eine Bilanz nach 20 Jahren, Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, Potsdam
• 2013/14: Außenseiter und Eingeweihter, Uno Art Space, Stuttgart
• 2013: Heimat verpflichtet, Kanzlei im Lübbenauer Schlossbezirk, Lübbenau
• 2013: Oliver Marks Blick auf Liechtensteins Staatsfeiertag am 15 August 2012, Liechtenstein National Museum, Vaduz
• 2013: Außenseiter und Eingeweihter, pavlovs dog space for photography, Berlin
• 2014: Oliver Mark – still...lesen, Goethe-Ins*ut Irland, Dublin
• 2014: Märkische Adlige – eine Bilanz des Neuanfangs, Fürst-Pückler-Museum, Cottbus
• 2014: Aus den Trümmern kriecht das Leben – Portraits von Karl Otto Götz, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
• 2016/17: Natura Morta, Liechtenstein National Museum, Vaduz
• 2017: Natura Morta, Natural History Museum Vienna
• 2017: Natura Morta, Fotografien von Oliver Mark in Korrespondenz zu Stillleben-Gemälden der Sammlung, The Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
• 2018: Life at the Bukovina Monastery, Bukovina Museum Suceava, Romania
• 2019: Life at the Bukovina Monastery, Liechtenstein National Museum, Vaduz
• 2019: No Show, Villa Dessauer – Museen der Stadt Bamberg
• 2019/20: Golden Shoes – Photographs from the Collection of the Liechtenstein National Museum by Oliver Mark
• 2019/20: Life at the Bukovina Monastery, St. Thomas von Aquin Church
• 2020: Jenny Holzer's Hands in the Peter and Paul Church, Potsdam
• 2021: Museo, Kanya Kage Art Space Berlin

Curated exhibitions

• 2012: Der arge Weg der Erkenntnis, Gloria Berlin
• 2017: Alles oder Immer, Schau Fenster, Berlin
• 2018: Raum XVII, Werkhalle Wiesenburg, Berlin. The exhibition is based on Room XVII in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, where works are exhibited by Italian masters from the 16th and 17th centuries (ten male artists and one female artist, Sofonisba Anguissola (* approx. 1531/1532 in Cremona; † 16. November 1625 in Palermo).
• 2019: small, Schau Fenster, Berlin

Publications

Book cover of No Show (2019)

• Portraits. Hatje Cantz, Berlin 2009, ISBN:978-3-7757-2484-5.
• With Martina Schellhorn: Heimat verpflichtet. Märkische Adlige – eine Bilanz nach 20 Jahren. Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, Potsdam 2012, ISBN:978-3-932502-60-6.
• Oliver Marks Blick auf Liechtensteins Staatsfeiertag. Alpenland, Schaan 2013, ISBN:978-3-905437-34-8.
• Außenseiter und Eingeweihter. Hatje Cantz, Berlin 2013, ISBN:978-3-7757-3756-2.
• Aus den Trümmern kriecht das Leben. b.frank books, Zürich 2013, ISBN:978-3-906217-00-0. (with poems by K. O. Götz)
• Oliver – Nutte Künstler Fotograf. Die ganze Wahrheit über Oliver Mark. Grauel, Berlin 2014.
• Natura Morta. Kehrer, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN:978-3-86828-759-2.
  (with texts by Barbara Hendricks, Rainer Vollkommer, Philipp Demandt, Julia M. Nauhaus, Michael Schipper, Aurelia Frick, Christian Köberl, Lorenz Becker)
• Bucovina Monastery Life. Editura Karl A. Romstorfer, Suceava 2018, ISBN:978-606-8698-29-8. (with texts by Rainer Vollkommer, Constantin-Emil Ursu, Teodor Brădăţanu)
• No Show. Distanz, Berlin 2019, ISBN:978-3-95476-281-1. (with texts by Carolin Hilker-Möll, Christoph Peters, Georg Maria Roers SJ, Michael Schipper)

Collections

Mark's work is held in the following permanent collections

• Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
• Würth Collection
• Bukovina Museum, Suceava, Romania

Gallery

• Balthus, Rossinière 2000

• Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Paris 2002

• George Tabori, Berlin 2003

• Otto von Habsburg, Pöcking 2006

• Hans Neuenfels, Berlin 2006

• Ridley Scott, Berlin 2005

• Adrian Ghenie, Berlin 2014

• Daniel Brühl, Berlin 2015

See also

• Portrait photography

References

External links

• Official website
• "Oliver Mark at the Lindenau-Museum" In: clairbykahn.com
• Interview: "Oliver Mark's Astounding Portraits of Your Favorite Artists" In: noisey.vice.com
• Article about the "Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013" In: justaddpictures.com
• Literature by and about Oliver Mark in the German National Library catalogue