"My work is a way for me and by extension the viewer, to comprehend reality in all its complexity – subjectively, politically, symbolically. It allows me to show how history, memory, and shifting power structures inflect the present moment. I think of drawings as the eclectic remains of a lost primitive scene, and my work as an archaeological field shrouded in fog, where each work has the potential to flick a switch in the viewer’s mind and activate his or her own memory of that scene." Marc Bauer
History, memory, identity and gender, the connections between violence, religion and sexuality and migration are major themes in Marc Bauer’s work that consists for a major part of black and white drawings, but extends to animation film, ceramics, oil painting and sculpture. On the basis of a intensive research, often in collaboration with outside specialists (musicians, philosophers, authors, scientists), Bauer develops work that range from intimate sets of drawings, to large-scale, space-filling installations that can include many media like wall drawing, work on paper, animation, sound.
Marc lives and works in Zurich and Berlin. He studied at the Ecole Supérieure d’Arts Visuels Genève (now HEAD) and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His works are exhibited in Switzerland and internationally at institutions including the Kunstmuseum Basel (2026-2027); Menil Collection, Houston (2023-2024); Kunsthalle Mainz (2025); Kunsthaus Zurich (2025, 2019, 2015 and 2008); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2021); Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2020); Drawing Room, London (2019); Migros Museum, Zurich (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017, 2014, 2011); Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris (2013); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2011); MAMCO, Geneva (2010); Albertina Museum, Vienna (2015).
Bauer was included in the 2022 Congo Biennial, the 2018 Biennale of Sydney and the 2014 Liverpool Biennial. He is the laureate of the Prix Meret Oppenheim / the Swiss Grand Award for Art 2020 and the winner of the GASAG Kunstpreis in 2020, was awarded the Prix culturel Manor, Geneva in 2009, and the Swiss Art Award in 2001, 2005 and 2006.