Marc Bauer Born 1975 in Geneva, Switzerland

Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland

Marc Bauer (b. 1975 in Geneva; lives and works in Zurich) has developed an artistic repertoire focusing on drawing, wall installations, film, and painting. Working through serial constellations of works in which motifs and narratives reappear, Bauer unravels central themes related to cultural and historical developments, as well as our collective social and political heritage. Bauer’s practice is also concerned with images that have marked cultural memory and continue to reappear across time. Echoing the thinking of cultural historian Aby Warburg, his work engages with the persistence and migration of images, tracing how certain visual motifs resurface in new historical and political contexts.

Speaking about his practice, Bauer notes that “painting and drawing are a way for me, and by extension the viewer, to comprehend reality in all its complexity – subjectively, politically, symbolically. It also allows me to show how history, memory, and shifting power structures shape the present moment.”

Bauer’s works often begin with images he researches and gathers from a range of sources, which serve as starting points for installations, drawings, and paintings. While he may take inspiration from a photograph of a historical event, a film still, or an image found on the internet, his drawings are not exact replications. Instead, Bauer develops these sources into something new. When drawing from memory, he constructs worlds populated by fictional characters and narratives, embedding them within familiar settings and allowing the viewer to encounter alternative realities through the subjective lens of his own experience.

 

Marc Bauer studied at the Ecole supérieure d’art visuel in Geneva and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. His work has been featured in many solo exhibitions, including the Berlinische Galerie, Istituto Svizzero in Milan, Drawing Room in London, De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris and the Frac Auvergne, Frac Alsace, Frac Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur. His work was included in numerous group shows, including the 21st Sydney Biennial (2018), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2017) and the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich (2016). 

 

Marc Bauer is the recipient of the 2020 Swiss Art Award - Prix Meret Oppenhein as well as the 2020 GASAG Art Prize (presented in collaboration with the Berlinische Galerie and comprising a solo exhibition and a monographic catalog).