BIOGRAPHY
MICHAEL MACGARRY
(b. 1978 Durban, South Africa)
‘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.’
Michael MacGarry is a multi-award winning visual artist and filmmaker based in Johannesburg. He holds a Master’s 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).
EDUCATION
2012 Fellow of the Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts, at the University of Cape Town
2004 MFA (Distinction), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
2000 BFA (Cum Laude, Dean’s List), Technikon Natal, Durban, South Africa
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
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, the collected film and video work of Michael MacGarry, 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, Grahamstown, 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
2023 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 for 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, Nurnberg, 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, Damiler 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
Why Not?, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany
AWARDS & PROJECTS
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, 14th 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, 13th 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
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
