Mark Divo

Mark Divo (born 1966) is a Swiss-Luxembourgian conceptual artist and curator. He organizes large-scale interactive art projects incorporating the work of underground artists. His work involves painting, performance, photography, sculpture and installation.

Early life
Divo was born in 1966. From 1987 to 1989 he studied social sciences in Göttingen. He had his first self-organized exhibition in 1988. In 1989 he dropped out of studies and moved to Berlin.

Career
Between 1988 and 1989 Divo worked in West Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he moved to East Berlin, where he organized exhibitions at the Kunst Haus Tacheles. Between 1990 and 1994 he organized exhibitions, performances, and murals with the Duncker group.

In 1994 he moved back to Zürich where he created a number of murals and organised a group of travelling mural painters. There he organised a number of underground art projects funded by the Swiss government, including exhibitions / events in the subways of Escherwyssplatz. In 1995, he organised a festival of underground art. Among st the artists who exhibited were Swiss artist Ingo Giezendanner, German artist Leumund Cult and British artist Lennie Lee.

In the winter of 2002, he occupied the Cabaret Voltaire with different artists including Dan Jones. Together they succeeded in preventing the location's closure. The building has now been turned into a museum dedicated to Dada (Cabaret Voltaire). In 2003 he organised another Dada festival at the Sihlpapierfabrik.

Beginning in 2003, Divo organised an annual Dada festival. In 2004, he was awarded a one year art residency at the Swiss Institute Contemporary Art New York in West Broadway, New York where he invited artists to exhibit alongside him. In the summer of 2008 he established the Divo Institute, a new multi-disciplinary arts center in the city of Kolín, near Prague. In August 2009 Divo was one of thirty artist-curators who presented work by artists from the Divo Institute at the Subvision Art Festival, Hamburg.

Since becoming an artist, Divo has exhibited in museums throughout Europe including the Helmhaus, Zürich, the Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Kinský Palace, Prague. He has created three public sculptures for the city of Zürich.

Since 2002, working in collaboration with artists, performers and photographers, Divo has produced a series of large format conceptual photographs in which he satirists politics and mocks art history.