Mark Clintberg is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Alberta. His text works are often installation based, and we love how engaging they are for their viewers!
Clintberg's text based pieces are often responses to other people's concepts and works. For example, he describes "Passion Over Reason" as a response to Joyce Wieland's "Reason Over Passion." This work is an extremely clever engagement with Wieland's piece because not only was the titular text reversed, the fabric of the quilt's surface is inverted as well. We also think this piece could have an element of irony, as quilting is not often associated with the passion the text references. However, Clintberg also has a number of pieces that can be interpreted very literally, such as "Meet me in the Woods." The viewer is directed into the woods where they will simply be greeted by another sign pointing them back in the direction they came, generating a fruitless set of directions. The refined, yet effectively simple ideas that Clintberg's text work portrays demonstrates his unique artistic voice.
Site specificity is a large component of Mark Clintberg's work. Because they are often collaborations that respond to their surrounding environment, we love how they work so well in their installation spaces that it seems the locations were made for them, not the other way around!
