Michael McGarry

When enough people start saying the same thing

16 July - 16 August 2008

For exhibition I will be showing a comprehensive body of new work that continues my overarching concern with the machinations of imperialism in Africa. Working in various media, from sculpture to large-scale photography and editioned bronzes, I use temporal compression, fictional narratives, satire and the grotesque to explore current political concerns, notions of veracity, represenational paradigms and the mechanics of political power both at a domestic level as well as across the continent. The title of the exhibition, When enough people start saying the same thing, functions as a binary definition of the tipping point in power dynamics as a means to effect broad-based political will in both democratic societies as well as fascists regimes.

My working methodology in the past was dominated by a conceptually-based dogma that excluded the material manufacture, exhibition or manifestation of any artworks or art objects. Using this aspect - titled All Theory. No Practice. - I wrote about ideas, concepts, artworks, themes, film treatments, etc but never produced them, exhibited them as material objects or made them. Predominanty web-based (www.alltheorynopractice.com), over time this dogma presented serious challenges to my ability to function as an artist, and ultimately to produce anything at all (ideas included). Recently I have moved away from this methodology, instead producing props, ephemera and stand alone sculptures from these fictional films. I have also produced large-scale photographs that in a sense act as stills from these unrealised films. It is these films, existing only as treatments and ideas and scripts, that generate all of my tangible artworks at present. So the shift from not producing material works at all, to producing props from these fictional films means that I am now able to produce, make and market art objects for the first time. I find the role of the sequential filmic narrative, the conceptual process behind thinking of a film and the strange dual function of the props and objects themselves as a useful, intriguing and productive new means of working.

This exhibition runs concurrently with MacGarry's commissioned entry for the MTN New Contemporaries 2008 at the University of Johannesburg Arts Centre, opening 10 July 2008.

The gallery is open from Tuesday to Friday, 10:30am to 5:30pm, and Saturday from 9:30am to 3pm.

Sold
Sold
Sold