Hugo Markl


Hugo Markl is a contemporary American artist, curator, and creative director.
He studied Visual communication at the University of Applied Arts Vienna where he graduated with an M.A. in fine arts. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, video, drawing, printmaking, installation art, and performance. Markl lives in New York City.

Work

"I imitate popular art that will not become popular art". With these words Hugo Markl has described his art, which feeds on the media imagery of consumer society, newspapers and porn websites, fashion magazines such as Vogue, logos of multinational corporations like FedEx, and even traffic signs, or objects charged with cultural and social connotations, such as the famous Winchester rifle. Markl deconstructs these symbols, or rather the relationship between the images and their referent, through collages, drawings, sculptures and installations that create a typical estrangement effect, creating a vision that looks both familiar and unknown. The artist sometimes combines references to low or vulgar culture with highbrow culture, as in the case of the IQ drawing series, where the sign 'ROCK' is overlaid on the naked body of a woman, as a homage to conceptual artist Dan Graham-or the sign 'IKEA' is silhouetted against the reproduction of a famous edition of Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment, the Bible for critics of consumer society and mass culture.
His work was widely reviewed by major international press outlets such as Art in America or the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In his exhibition "Peter Builts" in 1997 at Galerie Walcheturm in Zurich he explored thoroughly and precisely the different facets of audio-visual impulses and how they influence contemporary body and mind. His work was compared to Richard Serra's minimal opulence as well as to Richard Prince's aesthetics, which cross the visual signs of everyday life with the insignia of art. This intersection of everyday life, pop culture, criticism and art is the base of his continuous exploration of aesthetic experience and the meaning of artistic creation nowadays.
In principle, he does not participate in-group exhibitions. However, Markl’s works are shown in-group exhibitions. For example, private art collectors lend their art to famous curators to organize public group exhibitions.

Exhibitions

Markl's installations and sculptures have been exhibited in some solo exhibitions and some group exhibitions worldwide.
Selected exhibitions and projects:

Solo exhibitions

- Galleria Raucci / Santamaria, SHRUG, Naples
- André Schlechtriem Temporary, CALCIUM, New York
is a political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. The original publication by the Gazette is the earliest known pictorial representation of colonial union produced by a British colonist in America. For comparison, both versions of JOIN, or DIE'' are shown here. Benjamin Franklin's original and Markl's updated version.1999 - Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, THE BIRTH OF peter builts AND THE DEATH OF hugo markl BECAUSE I NO LONGER AM I AM EVERYBODY I AM EVERYTHING, Zurich
- Liste 97 the young art fair, Basel
- Galerie Walcheturm, Peter Builts, Zurich
- Centre d' Art Contemporain, PASSAT, Martigny
- Galerie Patrick Seguin invites Galerie Eva Presenhuber, We Are Sun-kissed and Snow-blind, Paris
- Burger Collection, CONFLICTING TALES, Berlin
- Porta di Sant' Agostino, Stultifera Navis, curated by A. Bruciati and M. Tagliafierro, Bergamo, Italy
- House Eva Presenhuber, Jubilee Exhibition, Vnà, Switzerland
- Palais de Tokyo, The Third Mind, curated by Ugo Rondinone, Paris
- Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, BREATHING THE WATER,, Zurich
- Gruppe Öesterreichische Guggenheim, Kunstverein, GLÜHWEIN + KESCHTN – Lavuapappn, Vienna
- Kunsthaus Zürich, Wunderkammer Öesterreich,, Zurich
- MAK – Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Austria im Rosennetz,, Vienna
- Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Coming up, Vienna
- Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
- Karin Kilimnik, Galerie Walcheturm, window display by Hugo Markl, no face entertainment row, Zurich
- ACME studios for the artists, superapologize 60 min.,, London
- Museum und Galerie Moderner Kunst Laibach, Lokalzeit – Wiener Material im Spiegel des Unbehagens,, Laibach / SLO
- Kunstraum Strohal, Lokalzeit – Wiener Material im Spiegel des Unbehagens,, Vienna
- Galerie im Taxispalais, Art Tirol,, Innsbruck
- Galerie Walcheturm, Passing Through, group show,, Zurich
- Men, Group Show, Galerie Walcheturm, Zurich
- Shedhalle, STILLSTAND switches, Zurich
- Galerie Zeitkunst, Aus der Nähe. Aus der Ferne., Innsbruck
- Öesterreichisches Museum des 21. Jahrhunderts,, Vienna
- Galerie Zeitkunst, Innsbruck
-Galerie Knoll, Drucke, Vienna

Collections

Private Collections

Markl was represented by Galerie Walcheturm, Zurich; Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples; André Schlechtriem Contemporary, New York; AMP Gallery, Athens. He's currently represented by DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin.

Personal Life

Markl has two children: daughter Adah and Hannah. For a period in the 2010s, Markl gave up business to be a stay-at-home dad to his children.
Between 2006 and 2008, Markl made approximately $12 million, solely from income as an advertising consultant for multinational corporations.
Markl's business relationship with three galleries ended abruptly in 2010, he says, the main reason for the mutual break off of the relations was the imbalance of power in these relationships.