MICHAEL MACGARRY

(b. 1978 Durban, South Africa) 

Michael MacGarry is a multi-award-winning visual artist and filmmaker based in Johannesburg. His practice focuses on socio-political and economic narratives, particularly within the context of Africa, drawn through a post-humanist autobiographical mode. He holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand, 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.

MacGarry’s political and poetic oeuvre is realised across a diverse range of media - including sculpture, photography, paper, installation and film. “I am increasingly drawn to the narrative capacity of objects – especially those repurposed from my immediate surroundings, that morph from utility to aesthetic, through processes of grafting imaginary and visible realities – as embodying compound ideas and multiple antecedents (both formally and conceptually) yet are not manifest. That is, in fact, resistant to overt communication. A process that dissects the works from both myself and the sum of their parts, forcing them – sometimes quite violently – to exist on their own terms, robbed of their former utility, and given new responsibilities.”

He has exhibited internationally at institutions including TATE Modern, Guggenheim Bilbao, Kiasma Museum and Zeitz MOCAA. 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).

EDUCATION

2012      Fellow of Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA),

University of Cape Town
2004      MFA (Distinction), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
2000      BFA (Cum Laude, Dean’s List), Technikon Natal, Durban
1999      IES Cheltenham and Gloucester College, U.K.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025      The Long Run, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2024      The business called show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

             The System Absorbs All Opposition, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022      Genre pictures, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021      Superstructure, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018      A course sorting of the readily available, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

             We are now, what you once were, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017      SHOW NO PAIN, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016      Between Rot and Genesis, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2015      There’s an Animal Inside, FNB Joburg Art Fair

2013      As Above, So Below, Centre for Democracy, Cape Town, South Africa

2012      The Other Half, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2011      Entertainment, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010      END GAME, Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010 (Visual Arts), Monument Gallery, Makhanda, South Africa

              This is your world in which we grow, and we will grow to hate you, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa

2008      When enough people start saying the same thing, Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa

2004      Or Until the World Improves, The Premises Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025       Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

              EXPO CHICAGO, with Everard Read, Chicago, USA

2024       Inner Sanctum, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

               Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

               Marvellous Realism, curated by Ekow Oshun, KT Wong Foundation, Fotografiska, Shanghai, China

2023       What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

              Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

              ARES, curated by Henry Hussey & Sophia Olver, Cromwell Place, London, UK

2022       3D in 2022, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

              God of War, OHSH Projects, London, UK

              Time is Going: Archive and future memories, curated by Azu Nwagbogu, EUNIC Senegal, Dak'Art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal

2021       ARCOLisboa online, with Everard Read, Lisbon, Portugal

              In Conversation, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020      Matereality, curated by Andrea Lewis, Iziko SA National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

             Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

             Pentatonic Rubbernecking, with Jacob van Schalkwyk, GUS, Stellenbosch, South Africa

             STILL, Everard Read online exhibition, South Africa

             The Portrait Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2019      Still here tomorrow to high five you yesterday…, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa

             Africa State of Mind, Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, USA; Royal West of England, UK

             Academy, Bristol & Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK

             FNB Art Joburg, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

             Chinafrika, curated by Jochen Becker, Kunstraum, Konfuzius Institut, Nürnberg, Germany

             In the Belly of the Whale, with Dale Adcock, Transition, London, UK

2018      Making Africa, curated by Okwui Enwezor & Amelie Klein, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, USA

             Flow of Forms, Völkerkundemuseum, Hamburg, Germany

2017      Off the wall, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

             Another Antipodes, PS Art Space, Fremantle, Australia

2016      Sub-Sahara: Accelerated Urbanism in Africa, Tel Aviv, Museum of Art, Israel

             Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2015      Bronze, Steel & Stone, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

             The Film Will Always Be You, TATE Modern, London, UK

             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, South Africa

              Pop Goes the Revolution, The New Church, Cape Town, South Africa

2013      'MINE' – MC2a – MIGRATIONS CULTURELLES, Aquitaine Afriques, Bordeaux, France

2012      Impakt Festival, CBKU, Utrecht, Netherlands

             Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011      Johannesburg Contested Terrains, Tate Modern, London, UK

ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art Helsinki, Finland

2010      Ampersand, Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, Germany

             Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, UK

             Forex: This is our time, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2009      Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK

             Why Not?, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany

SELECTED AWARDS & PROJECTS

Ampersand Foundation Fellowship, New York 2024

Parabolas, public art commission, Meta Foundation, Johannesburg 2022

Wallpaper* magazine, April 2020 limited edition cover by Michael MacGarry, featuring Maputo, Mozambique 2050 – from the artist's 100 Suns series.

Official Selection: Sea of Ash for Film Africa - the Royal African Society’s annual film festival - screened in competition for the Baobab Award for Best Short Film, 2016

Jury Award: Special Mention for Sea of Ash, 14^th International Festival Zeichen der Nacht, Bangkok, Thailand 2016

El Ray Award -­ Excellence in Narrative Short Filmmaking, Barcelona Film Festival 2015

Jury Award: Special Mention for Excuse me while I disappear, 13^th International Festival Signes de Nuit, Paris, France, 2015

Finalist Huysmans Young African Filmmaker Award 2015

Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts Fellowship 2012

Standard Bank Young Artist Award (Visual Art) 2010

MTN New Contemporaries Award 2008

Full Merit Scholarship, University of the Witwatersrand 2005

National Arts Council Individual Artist Grant 2004

Dean’s Commendation 2000

SELECTED 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