Mark Jenkins

Virginia-born, street-based artist Mark Jenkins creates mysterious urban-based figurative sculptures that are temporarily placed in the public realm. Jenkins work, exhibited internationally,  is funny, jarring, surreal, and upsetting, depending on your point of view and level of 'being in the present'. He plays the part of a trickster, a role that many street artists inhabit.

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For the opening of the Taubman Museum of Art in 2007, I asked the artist to create a series of works that would be placed in the museum. The first was a faceless figure that originally sat on the wall outside the museum's boardroom, facing and overlooking a major thoroughfare. That didn't last long: the mayor of Roanoke called Georgeanne Bingham (director) and said, "Get that damn thing out of there--its completely jammed our 911 lines!"...so we turned the figure around to face inward.

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Another work was placed on the floor, up against the wall, in a gallery that housed a stunning collection of 17th Century Baroque paintings from the Haukohl Family Collection with the complete blessing of Sir Mark Haukohl, who is responsible for amassing the works and was knighted by the Italian government for co-founding the Medici archive project. I literally saw several visitors jump upon entering the gallery, upending their expectations.