Michael MacGarry
Michael MacGarry is a multi-award winning visual artist and filmmaker based in Johannesburg. He holds a Masters Degree in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand, where he is currently a PhD. candidate (History of Art). MacGarry is a fellow of the Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) at the University of Cape Town and a recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010.
Michael’s political and poetic oeuvre is realised across a diverse range of media - including sculpture, photography, installation and film. His focus is on the tension between marginalised and so-called centralised narratives; the postmodern micro and the modern macro in spaces where contemporary life is in a state of invention and flux.
Michael has exhibited internationally for more than ten years including TATE Modern, Guggenheim Bilbao, Kiasma Museum and Iziko South African National Gallery. He has published four monographs on his work. As a filmmaker, Michael has written and directed seven short films, having featured on more than 30 international film festivals and is a recipient of an El Ray Award - Excellence in Narrative Short Filmmaking (Barcelona Film Festival 2015), a finalist for the Huysmans Young African Filmmaker Award 2015 (Belgium) as well as Jury Awards from 19th VideoBrasil (Sao Paulo), K3 Internationales Film Festival (Austria) and 13th International Festival Signes de Nuit (Paris).
alltheorynopractice.com
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017
Show No Pain, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg.
2015
There’s an Animal Inside.
2013
As Above, So Below.
Centre for Democracy, Cape Town.
2012
The Other Half.
STEVENSON, Cape Town.
2011
Entertainment.
STEVENSON, Johannesburg.
2010
END GAME.
Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010 (Visual Arts) Monument Gallery, Grahamstown.
This is your world in which we grow, and we will grow to hate you.
STEVENSON, Johannesburg.
2008
When enough people start saying the same thing.
Art Extra, Johannesburg
2004
Or Until the World Improves
The Premises Gallery, Johannesburg
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017
Utopia/Dystopia, MAAT, Lisbon, Portugal
2015
Bronze, Steel & Stone,
Everard Read, Johannesburg
The Film Will Always Be You
TATE Modern, London
FNB Joburg Art Fair
Making Africa. A Continent of Contemporary Design
Curated by Okwui Enwezor and Amelie Klein Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain
Africa: Architecture, Culture, Identity
Curated by Mathias Ussing Seeberg
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
The Johannesburg Pavilion
During the 56th la Biennale di Venezia,Venice, Italy
Africa Salon
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
2014
Half-Devil Half-Child
Blank Projects, Cape Town
Pop Goes the Revolution
The New Church, Cape Town
2013
'MINE' – MC2a – MIGRATIONS CULTURELLES
Aquitaine Afriques, Bordeaux, France
2012
Impakt Festival 2012
CBKU
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China
Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg
2011
Johannesburg Contested Terrains
Tate Modern, London
ARS 11
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art Helsinki, Finland
2010
Ampersand
Damiler Art Collection, Berlin
Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art
Ffotogallery, Cardiff, U.K.
2009
Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art
Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham
Why Not?
Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany
AWARDS:
El Ray Award -‐ Excellence in Narrative Short Filmmaking, Barcelona Film Festival 2015 Huysmans Young African Filmmaker Award 2015 -‐ Finalist
Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) Fellowship 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010 (Visual Art)
MTN New Contemporaries Award, 2008 -‐ Finalist
Full Merit Scholarship, University of the Witwatersrand, 2005 National Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, 2004
Cum Laude, Dean’s Commendation, 2000
COLLECTIONS:
Iziko South African National Gallery Seattle Art Museum
Gordon Schachat Collection Hollard Collection
Wits Art Museum
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) The New Church Museum
Standard Bank of South Africa Johannesburg Art Gallery Numerous private collections.
Read More
