Three different ideas come together in this work. It first began in about 1998, with a simple wish. The idea of making a wish is of course a useful tool for an artist, and when you make a wish it doesn't matter in the slightest whether you could ever make it come true. For instance, you can wish that you could open up your chest easily and painlessly and watch your heart pumping. In this case, I wanted to set down two objects - two cups, for instance - in exactly the same spot on a table. Of course that's physically impossible, but the idea, the wish that I could put two objects in the same place, stayed on my mind. Another thing that's occupied my thoughts for some years now is slack rope. At any moment, there are slack ropes hanging in many parts of the world, and I think it's an incredibly lovely, melancholy phenomenon. The curve of a slack rope as it hangs is just beautiful. A few years ago I devised a plan to hang a slack rope in the tensest place in the world. The two ideas I've just told you about came together when I decided to put a cat in the same place as a slack rope. The only way to accomplish this was by having the slack rope hang between the two halves of the body of a cat that was divided in two. If I had cut the rope in half, it wouldn't have been a slack rope any more, but a cat that's divided in two is still a cat. Then I turned this still life into a nocturnal garden scene, like a three-dimensional night photograph. I like the way the darkness in this scene captures light.

I don't see this as a violent scene. To me it has more to do with melancholy and silence. The difference in tension between the three ropes in this night scene is very beautiful. For me, it's not important that the viewer grasps the train of thought that lies behind this work. The story of how this sculpture came about - an odd one, perhaps - is ultimately irrelevant to whatever power it may have. The work has now been set up in the world as a fait accompli, and operates as a sculpture. I'm sure it will mean something different to each viewer. One of the nice things about a sculpture is that you can look at it for just a few seconds and then carry it away in your mind, sometimes for the rest of your life, as a mental photograph. Sometimes I try to make sculptures that are almost impossible to carry away in your mind, such as Unfired Clay Figure, which is hard to get a grip on.

[ Text: Mark Manders, Arnhem, 3-3-2006 ]


Mark Manders (Volkel 1969) woont en werkt in Arnhem.


website: www.markmanders.org