Kelly Mark

Born 1967, Welland, Canada. Lives and works in Toronto, Canada

Can you get to know a city from its A–Z street directory? In most cases, probably not – but Kelly Mark’s version of a Liverpool A–Z is different. Working with tenantspin, the internet TV channel run by the tenants of Liverpool’s high-rise flats, Mark explores the city of Liverpool through its people, not its streets. She talks to 26 people, from a wide variety of backgrounds and with a wide variety of interests – and whose first names happen to begin with the 26 letters of the alphabet. Kelly and tenantspin put together a map with a difference, and provide a tantalising series of glimpses into what people think about, talk about and get up to in Liverpool.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2006 Kelly Mark Thanks Everyone for Everything, Henry Art Museum, Seattle, WA, USA

2005 Glow House #3, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2005 Horror, Suspense, Romance, Porn, Kung-Fu, YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto, Canada

2004 Statue Series, Tracey Lawrence Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2003 Every thing is Interesting, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK

2001 Something to Do, Plug-In ICA, Winnipeg, Canada

2000 Kelly Mark, Proposition Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Kelly Mark, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada
12345, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

Selected Group Exhibitions

2006 Canada Dreaming, Kunstverein, Wolfsburg, Germany
Situation Comedy, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, USA

2005 I Really Should, Lisson Gallery, London, UK
The Hidden Side of Appearances, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada
Beyond/In Western New York Biennial, Albright Knox, Buffalo, NY, USA

2004 eQSLi, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, UK
Important Canadian Art, ZieherSmith Gallery, New York, USA
Inset, Blaffer Gallery (University of Houston), Houston, TX, USA

2003 Video Heros, Saidye Bronfman Center for the Arts, Montreal, Canada
Container, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, USA
Stretch, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2002 Beautiful Stranger, The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand

2001 Optical Verve, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada

2000 Wallpapers, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada

Further Reading

Gilles Godmer, The Hidden Side of Appearances, exh. cat., Montreal: Musée d’Art Contemporain, 2005

Sara Krajewski, Kelly Mark Thanks Everyone for Everything, exh. cat., Seattle: Henry Art Gallery, 2006

Catherine Osborne, ‘Kelly Mark’, Time Out – London (June 2005)

Gill Saunders and Rosie Miles, Prints Now: Directions & Definitions, exh. cat., London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2006

Terri Whitehead, ‘Kelly Mark’, Art Review Magazine (June/July 2005), p. 108