Mark Yang

Mark Yang’s colorful, incongruous arrays of anonymous limbs entangled together investigate the nuances of human interaction through a critical lens of art history. Morphing and distorting idealized figures into conglomerates of body parts, Yang’s forms exhibit a sculptural quality, the result of the artist’s thoughtful rendering of plane, dimension, and space. Reducing, dismantling, and reassembling their limbs almost to the point of abstraction with a variety of painterly techniques, Yang creates characteristically mysterious compositions that are not immediately forthcoming with their narrative plot. 

With a comprehensive set of art historical references, from the Baroque compositions of Peter Paul Rubens to the postwar abstractions of Ellsworth Kelly, Yang’s anatomical abstractions have been praised for their complication of gender norms. Yang’s ambiguous bodily arrangements rarely depict his figures’ faces, prioritizing their bodies over their identities. Resisting homogenizing classifications, Yang calls attention to shifting cultural conceptions of masculinity between South Korea, where Yang was born, and the United States, where he was raised. 

Yang received an MFA from Columbia University, New York and a BFA from ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, California. He has staged solo exhibitions at Kasmin, New York (2024); MASSIMODECARLO, Beijing (2023); Various Small Fires, Dallas, TX (2023); MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique, Paris (2023); Frieze No.9 Cork Street, London (2022); Half Gallery, New York (2022); and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2021). Yang has also participated in recent group exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen, New York (2023); The Pit, Los Angeles (2023); Kasmin, New York (2022); Galerie Perrotin, Paris (2022) and the Wallach Art Gallery, New York (2021). His work is included in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; and Rubell Museum, Miami, FL and Washington, D.C. Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1994, Yang lives and works in Tivoli, New York.