MIKE MANDEL
(American, b. 1950)
Mike Mandel grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles during a period of expansion and transformation of the landscape that included the appearance of billboards, strip malls, and miles of freeways. This experience informs much of his work which questions the meaning of photographic imagery within popular culture and draws from snapshots, advertising, news photographs, and public and corporate archives. Much of this work resulted in self-published artist's books including Myself: Timed Exposures (1971), Seven Never Before Published Portraits of Edward Weston (1974), The Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards (1975), and Making Good Time (1989).
In 1977, Mandel and Larry Sultan collaborated on the seminal photographic book Evidence, a book comprised of file photographs from engineering, corporate and government agencies. Over a period of twenty-five years, Mandel and Sultan designed both temporary (billboards) and permanent (tile mosaic) artworks specifically for public sites. Their collaboration has been documented in a recent monograph Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel (2012).
A publication of Mandel’s 1970s conceptual projects Good 70s was published in 2015. Since the early '90s Mandel's work has worked extensively on public art projects transforming photographic imagery into large scale glass and ceramic tile mosaic murals. Mandel's recent projects have been in collaboration with his wife, Chantal Zakari. Their book, The State of Ata (2010) speaks to the clash between Islam and secularism in Turkey. Their book They Came to Baghdad (2012) is a response to the Iraq War, and Lockdown Archive (2015) is a record of all the images uploaded to the web that relate to the military occupation of Watertown after the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013.
Mandel’s work resides in numerous collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA., the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the New York Public Library, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Jewish Museum, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Tate Modern, London, le Biblioteque Nationale, Paris, among many others.
MIKE MANDEL, Emptying the Fridge (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
30 x 40 inches | 76.2 x 101.6 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Robot Learns to Draw the Chrysler Logo (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
20 x 24 inches | 50.8 x 60.96 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Kids Brush Teeth (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, In Phone Booth (from the series Making Good Time), 1986
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Robot 6 (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Having a Talk (from the series Making Good Time), 1987
20 x 24 inches | 50.8 x 60.96 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Disk Drive Assembly (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
20 x 24 inches | 50.8 x 60.96 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Robot Lights Chanukah Candles (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
20 x 24 inches | 50.8 x 60.96 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Kids Clean Desks (from the series Making Good Time), 1986
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Robot Welder (from the series Making Good Time), 1984
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Watching TV (from the series Making Good Time), 1987
30 x 40 inches | 76.2 x 101.6 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Stacking Pampers (from the series Making Good Time), 1985
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print
MIKE MANDEL, Packing Plums (from the series Making Good Time), 1986
16 x 20 inches | 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
Vintage Cibachrome print