Details

Mark Hosking's sculptures appear as advanced prototypes for life preserving machine designed for the Third World or for use in the imagined remaining shreds of a post-apocalyptic world. Made from found and recycled objects they employ basic energy sources such as peddle and solar power, to perform essential activities. Exploring the relationship between form and function Hosking's devices are related to the history of Modernist sculpture. Their references range from surrealism through to the anxieties of the immediate post-war period, to a later brighter lyricism. Turning Out -Turning Into 2000, and Free Styler 2000 both use adapted bicycles to operate simple machinery. One powers a rudimentary lathe on which a baseball bat is turned, and the other a spindle for the manufacture bed springs, in so doing a means of protection (or aggression) is provided while the other offers a place to rest. Sun King 2000 and Solar Canteen 2001 are both cooking devices that deploy mirrored surfaces to focus the sun's rays. Sun King focuses fifteen angled chrome lids onto the surface of a cooking pot while Solar Canteen has a large curved mirrored sheet which concentrates the warmth of the sun onto an element, heating water which in turn powers an oven. With the undertaking of a large public project for the City of Amsterdam, Hosking's work has become more socially direct. Project for ECAL. Living 2000 bends sheets of metal which have been laminated with carpet to make recliners, while Wassily A+E 2001 transforms a design classic armchair into a stretcher with the addition of simple components. Mark Hosking was born in Plymouth in 1971 and studied at Chelsea School of Art (1990-93), Slade School of Art (1993-1995) and Rijksakademie van Beeldebe Kunsten, Amsterdam(1997 1998). He was included in Neurotic Realism 2 at the Saatchi Gallery (1999); and City Racing - A Partial Account at the ICA, London (2001). He is represented by the Lisson Gallery, London where he exhibited in 1997.