Mark Staff Brandl (1955 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American-born artist, art historian and art critic now living primarily in Switzerland.[1]
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Raised in Pekin, Illinois, Brandl is the son of Earl and Ruth Brandl, and brother of Marcia Brandl Willhite. He lived for many years in Chicago, Illinois, where his career in fine art began. Brandl has lived primarily in Trogen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland since 1988. He studied art, art history, literature and literary theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois State University, and Columbia Pacific University, and completed his Ph.D. in art history at the University of Zurich in 2011.[2] Brandl is a lecturer in art history, painting, art theory and comics at the Art Academy of Liechtenstein in Nendeln, Liechtenstein and the Higher Technical Academy for Visual Art in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Brandl is active internationally as an artist since 1980, has won various awards, had many publications and had numerous exhibitions. His shows include galleries and museums in the US, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Egypt, the Caribbean; specific cities include Paris, Moscow, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. As a critic, he is a frequent contributor to London’s The Art Book and is a Contributing Editor for New York’s Art in America.[2] He has frequently collaborated with fellow former Pekinite Th. Emil Homerin.[3] Brandl is also a member of the Sharkpack artists' group founded by artist Wesley Kimler and is a contributor to Sharkforum,[4] a critical website concerning art and contributes to the renowned art critical podcast Bad at Sports.[5] Due to his participation in Sharkforum, Bad At Sports, Art in America and exhibitions, Brandl has become highly visible once again in the Chicago and New York art worlds, as well as in Europe.
He is also the curator of The Collapsible Kunsthalle. Recently works of his have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the St. Gallen Art Museum, The Thurgau Museum of Fine Art, The E.T.H. Graphic Collection in Zurich, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the National Museum of Cartoon Art, the Art Museum Olten and others.[6]